First show of 2026, with the United Retailers Collective

0:01BubblemanPlease work. Did it work? Yeah, it says it's being live streamed. Oh, excellent. Let's see it just go live on YouTube because that's always a nice feeling.

0:16BubblemanI'll just check it out here. Looks like looks like it probably start with a little hash church.

0:26SpeakerOkay, okay.

0:28BubblemanSkip that. There we are. Boom. You're right. Look at that. We are live. Welcome, everybody. Welcome, everybody, to Hash Church. It's a new year. It's season 12. We did 52 episodes of season one. We did not miss a Sunday last year. And I don't know why, but that feels pretty awesome. Pretty stoked on how that all played out. And here we are for another new year. I look forward to another 52 shows.

0:54BubblemanAnd

0:57BubblemanShout out to the Press Club for the sick Christmas gift like this like LED sort of cool press club light thing. Smart of them too. They're going to have their logo behind me for every hash church they have signed up again for another year of sponsorship at hash church. So of course, we're going to start by shouting out everyone today. At Hash Church, we talk a lot about ritual, respect for the plant, and elevating the experience, and that's exactly why we're proud to be supported by Puffco.

1:30BubblemanPuffco continues to set the standards for modern consumption with tools built for people who truly care about flavor, temperature, and intentional use. From the Puffco Peak Pro with a 3D XL bowl delivering consistent heat, bigger hits, and unmatched terp expression to the Proxy redefining Modular, where's my proxy? I felt like it was right here. I was going to grab it and hold it up. Oh, well, can't do that.

1:52BubblemanRitual-based consumption and the pivot. I do have my pivot. I do have my pivot. We'll be puffing on that today. Bringing true Puffco performance into a compact, everyday format. These aren't gadgets. They're purpose-built tools for hash and solventless. We're genuinely grateful for Puffco's continued support of Hash Church, our guests, and our community. Their belief in education, culture, and quality absolutely helps us keep these conversations alive. You can support the brands that support the culture.

2:18BubblemanYou can visit Puffco at www.puffco.com. Explore their lineup and experience what intentional design really feels like. Puffco, elevate the ritual. Well, I'm going to elevate the ritual about 40 times today during our little unit here.

2:37BubblemanWe also believe that how you make hash matters at Hash Church just as much as what you make. Craft, consistency, and respect for the process are everything. And that's why we're proud to be supported by the Press Club. Press Club has become a trusted name in solventless production, creating well-engineered rosin presses, accessories, and tools designed for people who take this work seriously. That's us. Whether you're pressing at home or dialing in professional workflow from their precision-built presses to their thoughtful accessories and hardware, Press Club helps makers focus on what matters most.

3:10BubblemanQuality in, quality out. We're genuinely, genuinely grateful for the Press Club's support of Hash Church, our guests, and the wider solventless community. Their commitment to education, craftsmanship, and accessibility helps push the culture forward as well. You can support the companies that support the craft by visiting www.pressclub.co. You can check out their presses and tools and take your solventless game to the next level. You can use the code hashchurch10 for a discount as well.

3:37BubblemanPress Club, built for the press. Ah yes, now also I want to shout out We know that great hash starts with great cultivation. Resin quality, terpene expression, and plant health all begin under the light, and that's why we're proud to be supported by Grandmaster LEDs. Grandmaster LEDs are engineered with full spectrum precision, delivering an incredibly balanced light profile designed to support plants through every stage of growth.

4:04BubblemanWith advanced spectrum controls and efficiency, GML lights help cultivators dial in vigorous growth, dense flowers, and resin-rich plants. That's my favorite part. From craft scale growers to serious commercial rooms, Grandmaster LEDs are built for people who care about plants response, not just wattage. We're truly grateful for Thomas and the Grandmaster LED team, support of Hash Church, our guests and our community, and their commitment to innovation, plant science, and quality cultivation helps elevate everything downstream, including the hash.

4:35BubblemanYou can support these brands that support the culture. Visit GrandmasterLED.com. S, grandmasterleds.com. Explore their lighting system and see what intentional spectrum design can do for your garden. Grandmaster LEDs, lights with intention. You can, of course, use hashchurch10 as a code. Get yourself a little discount. And we would be remiss to not shout out my company. We wouldn't be here without the pioneers who helped define solventless extraction and bubble bags are a cornerstone of that history.

5:06BubblemanBubble bags helped introduce the world to ice water extraction, giving growers and hash makers a simple, effective way to separate resin Thank you so much for joining us today.

5:37BubblemanTheir commitment to quality and accessibility has empowered generations of hash makers. You can support the brands that build the culture by visiting www.bubblebag.com. Explore our extraction bags and accessories and keep the solventless tradition alive. I think our bags are seriously on for 40 or 50% off right now, but you can still use hashchurch10 and kick down that code for a little discount. Now, So we're going to start with Dennis here or is it Mark?

6:23BubblemanMy involvement with cannabis dates back to the 90s, experiencing the plant from many angles, smoking, dealing, growing, flipping, oh, I like that, and ultimately transitioning into the legal market. Alongside this journey, I spent more than 30 years running a family-owned retail business in the health and beauty industry, building a strong foundation in customer service and meaning... Thank you so much for joining us.

7:05BubblemanExceptional craft brands grown right here in BC. Our retail approach is focused on a carefully curated menu, hand selected by a team with over 65 years of combined consumption experience, something we're incredibly proud of. Recently, we've been collaborating with like-minded retailers and processors to help bring exclusive genetics to market. As the industry becomes a more educated and consumers seek more functional, intentional experiences, our goal is to help producers build a strong domestic presence, support negotiations with central buyers, And position their brands for current and future international opportunities.

7:39BubblemanSo that's Marco Koth from the Craft Greenery Cannabis. And next up is his partner, Dennis, also from Craft Greenery Cannabis. Dennis Park is a veteran cannabis entrepreneur and the co-owner of Craft Greenery Cannabis in Vancouver, BC. As a retailer, he has distinguished himself by championing the direct delivery model, focusing on logistical innovation and curating a shelf that prioritizes small batch, high quality BC products over mass marketed trends.

8:05BubblemanHis current work focuses on the particular realities of the legal market, helping bridge the gap between craft cultivators and the final consumer experience. His roots in the industry, however, run much deeper than the current legal framework. A dual citizen active in the space since 09, Dennis honed his professional standards as a technical product manager in Silicon Valley while immersing himself in California's rich legacy culture. He applied this discipline to the plant by founding Cancast, an early digital platform that helped legacy producers market their medicines to dispensaries long before legalizations.

8:37BubblemanHe has consistently aimed to build systems that professionalize the industry while respecting its underground origins. Beyond the storefront, Dennis is a dedicated culture builder whose passion was forged in the California legacy market. It was there he developed a deep respect for community-led standards, a philosophy he later brought north as executive producer of the Rosebud Bowl, modeled after California's Golden Tarp Awards, the event prioritized genuine... Consumer education over industry accolades, reflecting a career-long commitment to preserving the authentic culture he has been part of since his early days in the West.

9:15BubblemanSo that is the two gentlemen from Kraft Greenery. Next up, we have Matthew Greenwood from Up and Smoke. Matthew is an accomplished entrepreneur, father, husband, and friend with a strong background in business management, particularly within the burgeoning legal recreational cannabis industry. He holds a degree in political science from the University of Victoria, where he specialized in public policy and international relations. His academic foundations laid the groundwork for his dynamic approach to business operations and customer engagement.

9:44BubblemanMatthew was one of the last 100% owned independent owner operators left standing in Vancouver. Wow. Matthew's professional journey in the legal recreational cannabis industry is highlighted by a start in the role of co-founder Thank you for joining us.

10:14BubblemanThe regulatory landscape managing supply chains and fostering relationships has been pivotal in the store's success. I can tell you none of that is easy. Passionate about promoting responsible cannabis use and education, Matthew continues to innovate with the industry, ensuring Up and Smoke remains a trusted name for both recreational and medical cannabis consumers. Matthews served as a director and the president of the LRCCBC, formerly the RCCBC, ACCRES, and CAMCD, and is a current board member of the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Associations.

10:47BubblemanThrough his works and advocacies, Matthews appears regularly on the local and national news as well as news media. And has appeared as a panelist or speaker at multiple events and conferences throughout British Columbia. Matthew's excited to meet you and looks forward to hearing all about what you were working on and how we can help you reach your goals. You can find him on social media as he is the admin behind at up in smoke MTP on Instagram.

11:12BubblemanAnd last but certainly not least, we're going to mention Gary. Well, how do you pronounce your last name? I don't want to butcher that.

11:18SpeakerIs it? It's pronounced hair. It's one of these things. Hair. Okay. So I would have butchered it.

11:23BubblemanI'm glad I'm like hair.

11:24SpeakerI would have said hair. That's what I'll normally say if I'm on the phone. Otherwise, spelling it out is always a nightmare when I'm talking to somebody. I bet. Well, welcome, Gary.

11:35BubblemanGary began his retail cannabis journey with the goal in mind of creating a cannabis retail environment designed by cannabis connoisseurs for cannabis connoisseurs. Can you see where this show's going today, guys? When Gary started Local Cannabis Co. five years ago, he moved to Vancouver Island and started with a small store in Parksville, BC to learn directly from the ground up. Over the past five years, he has used the knowledge gained from that experience along with his passion to find the best cannabis available to develop a brand known for its menu and elite customer service.

12:07BubblemanDirect delivery and establishing relationships with craft growers found all across British Columbia has been the foundation of success for Local Cannabis Co. In the city of Vancouver, where everyone is always looking for that unique and high quality cultivar, Local Cannabis Co. has built a powerful reputation due to Gary taking the extra time required to see beyond what is available on the BC LDB. Gary puts just as much love into his menu offerings as the growers put into their cultivars.

12:33BubblemanWith three active stores located in Vancouver, Burnaby, and Parksville, along with a location in Surrey opening in the next few months, Gary has demonstrated time and time again that the better weed combined with a knowledgeable bud tainter team That is just as excited to be there as the customer is walking into the store results in just as strong in not just a strong store, but a strong brand.

12:54BubblemanFor 2026, we are looking forward to finding more and more ways to work with other retailers in the best interest of the craft cannabis market. And ways to make the market more viable for our passionate growers. Well, that was a lot of me talking, but I did it. I got you guys all introduced and super stoked to have you guys on the show today and to have this sort of Canadian conversation of Canada in cannabis in Canada.

13:22BubblemanSo first and foremost, welcome to all of you. Let me put it on speaker or gallery view so we can see everyone at once. Thank you, Marcus. Wonderful. Happy to be here. Happy to have you guys here. Absolutely. So, you know, maybe one of you guys wants to start in regards to how this collective journey began. I mean, I know you guys all pretty well, so I kind of have a good idea, but I'd love to hear it from the horse's mouth on kind of how, you know, you honed in on these people with similar interests.

13:54BubblemanYou know, you found your tribe and then you guys are sort of trying to put together a collective, which, you know, You know, it's definitely needed in an industry where it's slowly turning into just buy what they have. Just give me a pre-rolled joint. Just give me a... It's this endless sort of experience of educating the customer, which is kind of what it's all about and whether or not you can...

14:23BubblemanI think it's really important to attract customers that want to be educated because there are a lot of customers out there that don't want to be educated. I feel what all of you guys are doing sort of simultaneously is on the let's not only just like blindly educate our customers, let's attract customers that have a desire to be educated. Would you say that's accurate?

14:45SpeakerI would agree. Maybe, Gary, do you want to actually kind of share how we came about in the first place? Yeah I mean there's been a lot of different times that you know being in Vancouver obviously it's not like there's any shortage of stores in Vancouver so I think for ourselves once we were getting going is like we realized really really quickly is okay these are the other stores that are very think very similarly to us so just kind of always knowing about each other and I think one of the things that makes us so passionate is that for all three of our businesses like these are Thank you so much for joining us.

15:44SpeakerDennis, Mark, and Matt were always just the people that I was just really kind of drawn to at these events, especially, you know, you take a dab and you start looking for a safe space. If I see one of these guys' faces, I'm like, all right, let's go see what they're up to at this point, right? And I remember talking to Matt at one point too at an event and just kind of chatting a little bit.

16:03SpeakerI'm like, hey, man, I'm like, I know all three of us have kind of made this bet that even if it's not the biggest market, it's a market we're passionate about. It's the market that makes it fun. Coming into work is really finding that the unique genetics, the unique strains, and we're seeing this pattern where more and more of that is just leaving the country. So like if we're betting our whole business on being able to have this Amazing premium menu that we're all super proud of and it makes way more sense for a lot of that cannabis to be leaving the country like where does this go two three four five years down the road and i remember just saying that to matt and that was when it's still like i can kind of remember that exact moment like that's a great point i mean matt just looked at me he's like he's like i see that as an opportunity right he's like there's a lot of it yeah it makes it a little bit more of a viable market for those growers in the meantime Thank you for joining us.

17:11SpeakerTaking that step forward and bringing in other people, setting up a platform for it. Because I think what you realize really quickly is that among us, like, none of us are really at that level at that time where we're like, hey, we'll take 10 kilograms of this to keep it. And like, that's a lot of cannabis for any one store to take. So I think that's what kind of formed the foundation.

17:30SpeakerAnd maybe if Dennis or Mark or Matt want to jump in. I will simply say that for me, it was because I always heard their names from my partners that I was buying weed from, you know, like they would always mention to me, Gary or Dennis and Mark. And I was kind of different because I met Dennis and Mark when I was having a really good time at the Unicorn Cup.

17:54SpeakerAnd I was just, you know, as an independent, really eager to work with other independents that saw things the same way, because, you know, Vancouver, So, you know, independent owner operators or owner operators, whatever we are, you know,

18:19SpeakerWe're few and far between. So building a network of us just made sense, especially around advocating for things like the business of Vancouver. No, sorry, the business license fee for the city of Vancouver, because when we started, it was $35,000. And through working together and creating a network of Vancouver retailers, we've been able to advocate and get it down to $5,800 a year. So, you know, for me,

18:44SpeakerWe're working together was always a necessity because, you know, as a one store person, you don't really have a lot to say. But, you know, when you start getting three or four together, then people start to listen. And that really morphed into, you know, buying together because, again, like You know, you only have one pallet as a buyer for your store and you have your staff, but, you know, in the end you want experienced people.

19:09SpeakerAnd when we get together as a, you know, a foursome or a threesome, however you want to look at it brand wise or people wise, it gives us, you know, four different pallets. Like Gary likes different, the Slurm Drop. Gary has a different favorite than I do. So, you know, and it's really important to have that kind of sharing model because, You know, you can make silly decisions if you just trust yourself sometimes.

19:33BubblemanLike the bookstore, right? The good bookstore always has the employees' favorite books. It's not one employee. It's like, oh, here's Daryl's favorite pick. It's like, no, it's all of the people who work at the bookstore are going to have that. So that's a really cool concept. Go ahead, Mark.

19:50SpeakerOne thing I could touch on quickly in the beginning there is how this also kind of ended up forming about is Dennis and I have been really active and made a point to really go out Visit a lot of our friends in the Kootenays and, you know, throughout Vancouver, the greater Vancouver area. And, you know, do these site visits, check out the facilities, have the conversations with these guys.

20:08SpeakerObviously being involved with the Unicorn Cup and Rosebud and that obviously helped there as well and kept those conversations going. We were always kind of aware of what they were doing. And we were always kind of thinking like, okay, less and less of your stuff is staying here. Dennis and I are kind of just worrying going, well, what's going on? We're not going to have any solid product for this domestic market.

20:28SpeakerThey're exporting everything. So that was also part of the conversation of, well, how are we going to be able to retain some of this product and keep it here? But that was always, you know, we need enough stores to be able to move that quantity.

20:37BubblemanSo that's a major, major, Thank you so much for joining us.

21:10BubblemanYeah, there was just this disconnect. Like the Australians were getting a massive price for the cannabis. Like it was insane. But they were buying it at a pretty reasonable price because they were getting sold swag. And so as that ended and people figured out like, hey, you can get like two, three, $4 a gram if you find the right buyers. For great cannabis. And so then the great cannabis started leaving Canada.

21:37BubblemanSo I could see as a collective, as what you guys are planning on doing, that would be as tough to fight as the taxes. Because it's like, how are you going to convince a grower to sell you something at a fraction of the price that they can get? To go to Australia, knowing that Australia is not economically viable in the long term because Australia is going to build their own grows, their own greenhouses, their own fields.

22:02BubblemanThey're going to make their own hash. They're going to do everything just like we did. They're just a little bit behind us, but they'll get to a point where I suspect, and this is just my assumption, that it'll stop like in a very big way. Like it'll just be like... And suddenly people that are like, oh, I had this great deal. I was sending all my flour to Australia or wherever are going to have to be, you know, looking at their local store owners and say, hey, maybe you guys want some of this?

22:34SpeakerYeah, yeah, absolutely. And then a lot of the thing that a lot of these guys don't realize when they get into export early is having a presence in the domestic market still helps vet your brand internationally. The only way these international guys are looking to see if you're successful is to see if you're doing well in your own backyard. Exactly. Go ahead, Dennis. And there's something to be said about putting all your eggs in one basket.

22:58SpeakerI mean, it was a challenge back, I don't know, a year and a half, two years ago for the producers, which necessitated this jump towards export. But a lot of them tended to kind of So the bulk of their weight behind it and basically kind of take themselves out of the domestic market and in a tumultuous kind of industry like we have, it's not as safe a bet.

23:24SpeakerI prefer to have more lines in the water and increase my chances of survival. And I think that, you know, considering the domestic as part of the export strategy is an essential piece. It is where this is the home where you build your reputation. That reputation is what carries you over to those other markets. And that reputation can also allow you to have a stronger negotiation power and make it a two way conversation rather than a one way where, you know, cannabis was quickly becoming just a commodity.

23:56SpeakerAnd the brokers were coming in and just sweeping things up and putting the producers under duress. But I do want to kind of just comment on like the formation of this group and really about Finding Gary and Matt. And ultimately, like, I don't think that we, us four, don't have a monopoly on trying to be craft or bringing craft to the market. I know there's a lot of independents that also believe the same way.

24:24SpeakerBut I think ultimately, what kind of helped the genesis of this, in addition to Zach and Island Genetics as well being willing, was the fact that these other two gentlemen, they're very... They have a risk tolerance that's a little bit higher than some of the other operators generally kind of had. And I think that in an environment where margins are thin, things are uncertain, doing anything outside of just the normal operations seems like a big risk.

24:59SpeakerAnd I think that that is possibly, you know, pretty true. But that being said, you know, without some sort of risk taking, there is no forward movement. There is no innovation, evolution. And yes, we could have taken a lot of hits. And in some ways, we took some small hits, but learned along the way. And I think this has been the main reason why we've been able to kind of Succeed so far it's really all of us kind of feel feel the same way we both love craft we all love craft sorry but we also are willing to take that risk a little bit and and suffer and learn and uh one of our goals for the formation of the collective in the first place and even with this was that you know we figure out how we can make this work something that works for both sides retail and producer and consumer ultimately Then, you know, share that information so that other groups and other collectives can be formed.

25:59SpeakerOther producers can create their own collectives or retailers as such as well. I don't think that, you know, we're all good looking guys, but I don't think we're very special in the space. You know, we're just doing what we believe we should need to do. And I think that if we can continue to kind of Take the risks and kind of show a path forward. We all kind of hope that others will also step up and take the same kind of approach.

26:29SpeakerI think there's a lot of benefits that we've discovered doing things this way, launching things domestically this way that I think that benefits the retailer as well as the producer and kind of spreads some of that risk across both parties, both sides, which I think is the other important part. The lack of communication between both sides was, Quite great. You know, everybody's looking out for themselves almost.

26:53SpeakerAnd that's a surefire way to get like success for the short term. But the long term, it's an imbalance. So finding like minded producers was also key. And I think we found that with Zach.

27:06BubblemanThat's awesome. Yeah, it's the risk aversion is interesting because here we are, a lot of us coming from legacy. All we did was risk. And then when I saw people get their licenses, I saw a lot of the legacy people be like, I got my license now. I can't like I can't risk it, man. You don't understand how hard it was to get it. And then the corporate people.

27:27BubblemanWe're just like breaking the law like crazy. They were like, who are these fucking legacy people? Don't they realize the law was meant to be broken? And they're just like running rooms without licenses. They're fucking putting a thousand pounds out the back door after they write it off and it's getting sold into the gray market. And they're doing all this shit and everyone knows they're doing it.

27:46BubblemanSometimes they're even getting caught. And when they get caught, Don't do that. Don't do that. So I think what the legacy people who are involved in the legal market right now should realize is that boundaries are meant to be broken and stretched. We only got what we got by taking. It was never given to us. No one from the government was like, you know what? I woke up today thinking these guys need weed.

28:11BubblemanWe got to just give them weed. We had to claw and take and really like, you know, Thank you so much for watching.

28:42BubblemanThey aren't the same as they were. You know what I mean? In the cannabis legalization aspect, the laws just don't carry the same weight. I mean, have you heard anyone going to jail for doing any of this shit? Like my friend did 11 years in prison for selling weed in the black market in Canada back in the day. 11 years. And now it's like the amount that you can stretch and push those boundaries is very substantial.

29:12SpeakerIn my opinion. It's in their best interest. I mean, to keep these companies going, right? They're collecting taxes. They're going to keep fining them. You know, you shut them down, take their license away, and then there goes that cash flow, right? So, yeah, just slapping them and fining them. But I do want to say to our micro farmer friends who are watching this is the last thing that you want to do is get into the Health Canada audit machine.

29:37BubblemanSure. Yeah.

29:39SpeakerYeah. Let's just advise our friends to be very smart if they're going to step out of line, because once you're in the machine, like I've been in the machine with the provincial government and, you know, you're in it for a year and they're checking your shit and it's a pain in the fucking ass. And you don't want that because, frankly, they half the time they don't even know the laws themselves and they're making it up as they go.

30:01SpeakerSo, you know, be cautious, Fred.

30:05BubblemanBe cautious, but just realize those are the very handcuffs they put on you to maintain the boundaries they want you to be in. And the boundaries they want us to be in are not the boundaries we want to work within. And I can prove it because are you stoked on the tax? That's a pretty fucked up boundary. We definitely have to fix that. I mean, I'm from the extraction world, so the taxes...

30:28BubblemanAre brutal for me, whatever it is, right? It's this 10%. I don't know why they didn't just change the wording from like it's either $1 or 10%, whichever is less. That's all they needed to do is change one word, whichever is less, not whichever is more. Holy.

30:49BubblemanThey did such damage with that single statement in the Canadian industry. For me, I was involved in Canada for a while. We started a company. We were doing extractions. We were operating and realizing how difficult it is to operate. It was to the point where I shut down my brand in Canada and went to the U.S., And, you know, started operating there in a state and then a couple and then, you know, three or four and then five or six and then seven or eight.

31:18BubblemanAnd now I'm into eight states right now. I've got conversations going on in five or six different countries, including Latin America and Europe and New Zealand and Australia. So there's all these opportunities that are coming online. And finally, you know, finally, I was smart enough to come back to Canada because it's very true what Dennis and Mark said in regards to, well, how's your brand doing locally?

31:41BubblemanYou know, like Canada is a brutal market to have a brand in, but it doesn't mean you can't succeed. It doesn't mean you can't jump through the hoops and make it work. Thank you for joining us today.

32:12BubblemanWe'll see how that goes. I'll get my finger more on the pulse. I'll be able to become more involved with your collective and your group and kind of understand. You know, now on... On a flip, the group I'm dealing with is probably one of the largest MSOs in Canada and probably one of the most successful. So I didn't go the route of craft for my brand. It would have been very different to go about that.

32:39BubblemanI went into this facility. These guys have 12,000 lights burning at one of their facilities. I'd never seen cannabis grown at that quality in that size. I was like, how the fuck are you doing this? You know, I went and met their sensory team, which is basically just a ton of these French heads that are just like hardcore dabbers. Like these guys are hard core and they're working at this huge company and they're making raws and that they still want to puff and they're making hash that they still want to puff.

33:09BubblemanAnd so it kind of worked differently for me. But I, of course, have the utmost respect for craft. And even when I do a deal, say in the in the in the US in particular, I'm always about doing collaborations with smaller groups, with craft groups that are growing, you know, really beautiful cannabis that are paying attention to it. Now, keep in mind, I went to the school of Skunk Man Sam, AKA David Watson.

33:37BubblemanWhen I started making bubble bags and it was all five gallons and everyone loved it and it was taken off like fucking wildfire, there was a point where I was like, I need to make bigger bags. And I came out with the 32 gallon bags and people were like, oh, Yeah, you know, we don't do that. We find that you lose the quality, the purity is affected.

33:58BubblemanYou know, we like to keep it real small. And so everyone was like, okay, like you're just going to keep working in a five gallon bag. Like, all right. They didn't really understand that scale when done properly. And Sam was the one that taught me this because he told me straight up, I could grow five Weed that you could not, and I know this because I smoked it, in greenhouses or fields, this guy could, you know, he had the attention.

34:23BubblemanHe felt like he could grow weed as well as weed could be grown in a field. And that was mind blowing to me to hear because I was kind of like, well, why wouldn't everyone just do that? He says, well, because the majority of people that would grow a field of weed are Thank you for watching.

34:59BubblemanInto the reality of the community dash industry. But, you know, going to that school of Sam and realizing like, look, scale is not a big, big deal. You just have to change how you look at it. And when I talk scale from a five gallon to a 30 gallon, I don't think that's a massive shift in scale. I think it's a pretty reasonable, okay, we were using this size.

35:22BubblemanThis is a 4x. We're going to go up to this size now. But people really were You know, some people like Subcool, he wouldn't even leave the one gallon. He was like, no, I like the one gallon. I just hand spin it with my spoon. And I'm like, dude, but like, that's a waste of fucking time. Like you can make as good a hash in a 32 gallon, which is not, you know, some monstrous 5,000 liter commercial outfit.

35:45BubblemanI'm sure there's a point where scale is, Will affect you in a way that's not ideal, particularly if you lack the awareness of how to execute scalability. If you don't know how to do it and you don't understand that all of those variables that take place, like in washing, your variables are going to be your time, your temperature and your amounts. Thank you so much for joining us.

36:33BubblemanLike commercial chads that were like, we just need to pump out more of this hash. And I don't really care if the quality is keep in mind when we're making hash as well. It's a little bit different because making hash isn't necessarily about quality. It's about purity. So all we're doing is purifying the hash and I can purify hash on a very, very large scale. Thank you for joining us.

37:12BubblemanWhen the quality is exceptional and the purity lines up, that's when you get the holy grail, right? That's because I've made hash that's full heads, six star. Well, you'd expect it to be six star, but it's not. The heads didn't express themselves. They have a thicker wax membrane. And so the quality is just not there. And the bags have always been, to me, a grower's best friend because they're going to...

37:38BubblemanCut through your own cognitive dissonance. And yes, you have cognitive dissonance because you grow weed and your weed is the best in the world. They're just going to cut through that shit. And it's not about like, you know, convincing. When I used to sell herb, I'd have these guys come in and they'd be like, look at how crystal it is, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

37:57BubblemanLook at how, this is some of the best weed. They'd just be selling me on it. And my buyer at one point pulled me aside and he said, listen, I want you to sit in the room with the weed without the person telling you anything about it because Sales are sales and you can let them know that if they do wanna sell you something that you don't want or that we don't want, we're gonna be having a conversation with them next week.

38:19BubblemanWe're gonna come to town and we're gonna discuss it with them. So I got to the point where when I started buying flour commercially, I would not allow a person to sell me in my ear while I was doing it. I just didn't. And it was so subtle. Look at it. Look at how crystal it is. Oh, do you smell that nose? Smell that nose, dude. It's like, bro, I don't need you selling me the weed while I'm looking at it.

38:42BubblemanI'm buying 600 pounds and I don't need you leaning me either way. I mean, there's people that can sell, you know, Fucking anything to anyone. And so that's that kind of becomes a big part of when you're buying in particular. I don't know how it is anymore for you guys. I guess it's all on a computer. No, no, no, no.

39:05SpeakerExactly like you just described it, Marcus.

39:08BubblemanGood. There's so many reps. It's insane. Yeah, they're trying to sell. They're trying to sell. So I don't want to be sold. That's my problem. I want to see the product. I want to be gifted the product. But then I want you to leave me the fuck alone because the thing is, is you might sell me something I don't want. Do you guys suffer from that? How do you fight that?

39:30SpeakerSorry, I was going to say, I think a big part of it is just coming back to what you were describing there is so much of this whole thing is a bet on a grower more than on a specific cultivar, a specific strain. It's just going to the facility, talking to them, shooting the shit, like seeing if they have that passion, that passion. We're confident telling you we can take whatever you can produce for the next year because we know your bar for what you're going to put out is going to be higher than our bar.

39:57SpeakerAnd that was a big appeal. I know for me personally, as well as with Zach guys at Island Genetics, just seeing the facility, seeing how much love went into the soil that they're growing in and all the extra stuff. And I remember him even making a comment. He's like, He's like, I know there's probably people out there just laughing because I'm doing all this extra work for the LS.

40:16SpeakerSo I'm like, we notice it in the actual cannabis. So seeing somebody that's that dedicated to it, it was more of a bet on, okay, we want whatever you do for the next year because you see that passion in them that they're going to take that time and they have that extra love to do it the right way. Zach's got his custom-made tools, man. He's so into it, he can't find something that works for him and the system.

40:37SpeakerHe's like, oh, we custom-made this. We're starting to make this. And it was awesome. I want to just go back to one funny thing that popped into my head, though, when you're talking about the bags and the quality. And this comment from a couple of years ago, Dennis, you probably remember it came up at an event. Some guy talking about us about poo in, fire out. Oh, geez.

40:58SpeakerLike you say, you know, like you got to start with quality biomass. You know, these guys are trying to push through garbage and then come up with a nice jar. And it's just like, come on, man.

41:07BubblemanWell, didn't Ed come up with a book called Trash to Stash? I think Ed Rosenthal came up with a book years ago called Trash to Stash. And I was just like, dude, nobody wants trash in their stash. Oh, no. Yeah.

41:20SpeakerI do want to say something because you're talking about, you know, the difference of scale and the approach that you took versus like going through like smaller groups or whatever. But I think that What I wanted to comment on that is the view of like having to shift your approach based on scale, I think is pretty commonplace and understandable from all sides. But I think that view should be applied towards the way that you work as a producer with the retailers.

41:52SpeakerAnd I think that's kind of what we're ultimately kind of advocating here. A difference of perspective of You know, everybody's goal seems to be right now, get it into central, get it into other provinces, go for the big wide distribution, you know, and as they should, that's kind of the end goal for everybody as it should be. But the steps to kind of get there is, You know, it's too big a leap.

42:18SpeakerSo reframing it or looking at it a different way as like a smaller scale approach where it's a little bit, a smaller scale approach is a little more detail oriented. It's a little more personal, right? By definition, it's craft. Take a craft approach to your relationships with your retailer. And not every retailer thinks that way though. And so that's the same message to the retailers as well.

42:44SpeakerWe're all small businesses here. So let's kind of take that more personal approach, a little more detailed approach. And just like you guys do with your products, your plant, your concentrate, Have that same amount of care and attention to detail to the relationship with the retailer and vice versa with the producer and grow it that way first. And then, you know, once you get to a certain point to scale, then you're going to have to change the way you do things, the level of distribution or the platform or whatever it is.

43:16SpeakerBut how about you kind of evolve, but acknowledge the fact that the smaller steps, the more detailed approach within those relationships help both sides grow and get to that point.

43:28BubblemanSo do you guys have an interest on kind of cutting through the salespeople and making sure you have really intimate relationships with the growers themselves?

43:36SpeakerWell, I mean, with with the people in the company, because it's not always the growers themselves only. I mean, I've never there's very few, I think, operations where it's just completely master grower driven. And so it's really an analysis of the team dynamic as well as the talent that's there. You know, how do they approach the market? What is their vision? How do they kind of deal with situations?

43:59SpeakerYou know, and that's kind of... For Mark and myself, I think in the early days too, as we're kind of visiting all these facilities, that's always back of mind of like, of finding out, you know, what they're doing, but also observing how they work, how they kind of approach problems. You know, one of the things we were looking for is like, you know, as a new store a couple of years ago, just looking to see like, who do we put our bets on?

44:26SpeakerLike, who do we, who do we run with? You know, who do we think is going to make it, you know, kind of say. And so I think that framed our, I guess, interactions with all the producers and made it so that like, you know, it's more than just the sales pitch. You need to kind of get to know the people. And Mark is great with this.

44:48SpeakerMark is like super personable, has a knack of like really kind of getting people to be Almost like, you know, super comfortable and intimate and share stuff. Spill the beans? Yeah, spill the beans. And so, you know, I think that's a great thing because it takes down some of those walls that you put up, you know, to go out there and do battle in this world of cannabis.

45:15SpeakerAnd sometimes that armor, you know, is a little too strong and you kind of hinder the ability to kind of get what you were trying to do done. And so like focusing on, I know I'm kind of a broken record here, but focusing on the relationship and the interpersonal interaction, I think is the key part for all of this.

45:37BubblemanYeah, they have to understand that it's a huge risk for you guys to back craft. Like if you just wanted to back floor sweepings, distillate and botanical terpenes, you guys would all be the most successful companies in British Columbia right now. So the companies have to realize like, man, these stores are willing to back us. There's got to be some sort of like understanding and recognition of that because it truly and I fucking hate to say it, I remember when my friend Allison bought the peach rings joint and lit it in the car.

46:09BubblemanAnd I was like, my God, that smells like peach Lysol. What the fuck is that? And she, she was like, I know it's so fucking, she just wanted to buy it to show me how bad it was. She threw the whole thing out the window. It was like a $25 joint. And I said, Oh my God, that is the worst thing I've ever smelled. And she said, it's the number one joint in Canada right now.

46:27BubblemanI was just like, Oh my God, that would be, that'd be so hard. And I speak to it in the same way as like, you have to choose not to sell that and pay your mortgage and pay all your employees easily. And you have to choose, no, no, we're gonna go this route, which is a much more difficult route. It really is. It's the proper route. It's the conscious route.

46:51BubblemanLike I used to have a raw food cafe. It was like super high integrity and super low profit. The profit was almost non-existent because the food was like organic, vegan, raw, macrobiotic. It was all of these things that people were just like, it went over their heads. They were like, what do you mean this didn't go on a jet airplane? It's like, well, it was grown macrobiotically.

47:14BubblemanEverything was grown within 100 kilometers. Right over their head. No understanding whatsoever that for all they care, order fucking strawberries from Chile and fly them over on a plane. We don't care. Just make it cheaper. And so it's always been that no matter what aspect you when you choose quality over quantity, it's it's a real, you know, not everyone's going to hit that. You know, that's a smaller portion.

47:40BubblemanI think that's why such a big portion of the cannabis industry is, you know, fucking hemp, gas station, vape pens, and whatever, you know, floor sweepings, botanical terpenes, and distillate, which now that friend of mine, Alison, she used to be the... The CEO for 48 North. She was the first female CEO in Canada for a cannabis company. Awesome lady. And she tried so hard. She worked so hard.

48:12BubblemanShe hired my buddy Neil, who was an incredible grower and a legacy guy. And she just did everything right. And it was like, you know, in the end, the company fucked her over. They brought in a young dude and booted her out and did all this sort of shit. And I remember years ago telling her, I was like, listen, if you want the best product, Brand like the most the highest selling brand.

48:33BubblemanIt's got to be floor sweepings, distillate and botanical terps. And so she has now started a company in New York. It's the only place she's operating out of. She did she did a one day pop up with her floor sweepings, distillate and and botanical terpenes and did 400,000 US dollars in an afternoon of sales.

48:58BubblemanI know, I know it hurts, guys. I know it hurts. So it's like, how do we fucking, how do we fight that? How do we, because I mean, that's never going to change. That'll always be the masses.

49:09SpeakerAnd my philosophy on why that is,

49:14BubblemanIs because the majority of people have blown out their olfactory. They smoke cigarettes. They drink a ton of alcohol. They do all sorts of things where they don't have what I would call a sensitive palate. So when we're smoking and tasting all these different things, most people are like, huh? But when you put like a botanical terpene like pineapple and these people hit it, I see them.

49:34BubblemanThey'll go, oh, oh, it's pineapple. Like they're so fucking stoked that they recognize what the flavor is. And it's like, I get it. I mean, if I didn't have a flavor olfactory profile, like ability to taste things, and suddenly I tasted something for the first time, like, fuck, I might be stoked on that. So it's just, you know, how do you guys see that battle? Is it just like, you know what, we're not even paying attention to that.

50:01BubblemanWe got to focus on what we got to focus on. But how much does that hurt your soul? Because it really hurts mine.

50:08SpeakerIt It's a it's a it's a flavor battle and it's a potent it's a tolerance and potency battle because a lot of these new consumers to us cannabis was a joint you know it was actual flour you know I mean uh Gary and Matt are a bit younger than, uh, than, uh, than the Dennis and I, but literally me like stealing weed from my mom or my, my buddy stealing it from his older brother.

50:30SpeakerAnd it was, it was just, you know, rolling it up in grade nine and it was, that was it, you know, but the kids now that get introduced to cannabis, it's through carts, man. And they're talking on these vapes that are just super botanical over the top flavors, just punch them in the mouth. And, you know, the tolerance is through the roof. So they smoke regular fire.

50:52SpeakerThey don't feel anything. They don't taste anything. I mean, like you kind of got to treat it like a little bit of a journey. Like for us right now, we sell a ton of rosin now, but that wasn't something that we decided to do last month. It was two years ago. Like even again, for me getting more exposed to solventless and like, Holy shit. Like, okay, this is definitely the future, right?

51:14SpeakerSo it's making that game plan at that point is that we're not going to get somebody from general admission peach rings to some of the hive by Brindle, but it's like, let's get them off the general admission to just at least the resin infused pre-rolls. From the resin infused pre-rolls, maybe, okay, let's get a rosin infused pre-roll. And then from there, once they're at about 35, 40 bucks, it's like, hey, we have a Puffco V2 pen.

51:37SpeakerI mean, that was a big game changer for us on growing the solventless side is that you're coming in here and buying four packs of general admission, distillate infused. Thank you so much for joining us.

52:06SpeakerFor us is we feed off of that like when you mentioned it's the harder thing to do but it's so much more exciting like I've always said if we can't do it this way and it's a race to the bottom who's got the most THC for the lowest price I'm like I'll hire a manager and go find something else to do right like I'm not that's not what excites me to be at the store seven days a week 10-12 hours a day it's like those conversations like again and probably not the best thing to announce with it but we had a customer that bought I Thank you so much for joining us.

52:47SpeakerIt's not the biggest market, but if we can expand that market outside of our, hey, we're this two block radius from our store. And I knew, like, I know Matt's done a great job with the mail order all across BC. For us, it's been a lot of delivery. I know Dennis and Matt, our Dennis and Mark are a little combination of both as well, too. So it's like there may not be as many of them and they might be scattered, but we're passionate enough to go track down that good cannabis and they're passionate enough to Thank you so much for joining us.

53:35SpeakerTo learn, and frankly, there's a lot of stores that aren't educated themselves in the difference of extracts versus solvent versus solventless, whether it's in your edible, your drink, your vape, or your jar. And they don't even know how to consume it. Like the amount of customers who've come to me, because we do have a can of cabana down the street, who buy a Puffco product and come to me to teach them how to use it.

53:57SpeakerI'm grateful to teach them how to use it because of direct delivery allows me to sell them jars the can of cabana doesn't sell. So, you know, my whole journey in cannabis is because like I've always loved it, but nobody ever taught me how to do it because I didn't really have a deep cannabis network. I had a drug dealer who I bought flour off and he didn't teach me nothing.

54:17SpeakerSo, you know, like I had to learn myself about extracts and, you know, they're awesome. They're way better than peach rings. But if you don't have somebody showing you how to dab, showing you, you know, how to use a pivot, how to use a peak pro, how to use a banger, how to clean it, you know, you're just going to end up buying an expensive unit, fucking it up and then having like the worst time.

54:39SpeakerAnd then you're going to hate weed and you're going to go back to peach rings. But, you know, you can't teach something that you don't know how to do. So nobody wants to have a bad experience.

54:49BubblemanYeah, I got I got to actually shout out, you know, before your store was up in smoke, I used to go there and link up with Dom and Max and Dom and Max were very young guys when I first met them. And they were the first guys in the city of Vancouver to blow me away with their knowledge. They had so much fucking knowledge and the time that they would spend with people.

55:12BubblemanAt the counter, John and I would, Johnny B and I would go in and buy flour. And, you know, back when people still pressed flour and, you know, check out how according and accurate it was. And I just, you know, I think you've got a good foundation at Up and Smoke because those guys, I don't know how many years they operated out of there, but truly, and I'm, I say this in all honesty, like not a lot of people impressed me, but these two guys actually impressed me.

55:37BubblemanThey were so young and had such a, I just grasp on the knowledge that it was refreshing to hear people be such a voice of authority on a subject. And I think that, you know, not all dispensaries have that. I think that a lot of dispensaries just have, you know, people that they hire for it to be a job. And it's like, hey, you know, I'm just hiring this girl.

56:01BubblemanShe's going to be my dispensary girl and she's going to make sales. And it's like, OK, but like. Is she passionate? Does she have like a super deep understanding? The passion on these guys was like you could taste it when you walked it. They were literally just like vibrating with excitement. And so I think that was, I think that had to be a work in your favor.

56:23SpeakerOh, I did. I worked with them for a few years and, you know, I benefited from that knowledge and passion. And unfortunately, like the only reason why we're still not partners is because we have the Broadway Subway project in front of us and it's really negatively affected us. And You know, we our partnership ended before we were allowed to do mail order, really, and and direct delivery for that matter.

56:46SpeakerSo, you know, those two policies didn't really start until actually the same month that our partnership ended. So it was really unfortunate for that. And, you know, I actually miss them and I hope they're well. So.

57:00BubblemanI haven't seen them in ages myself. They were living in Horseshoe Bay for quite a while, which is my side of the, you know, it's close to me, only five minutes away. And not many people live close to me. It's hard to find friends. So it was nice to have them nearby for a while. And then just like that, They weren't working there anymore. They were moved off.

57:19BubblemanAnd then Dom was having like a baby and had a fiance. I was just like, wow, like you forget how much your life can change when you're young in like in an absolute instance. Like, wow, you just like got a totally different job, started a family, have a new partner for life. So yeah, congratulations to them. And I'm glad that you benefited from that. And I'm glad that you're continuing it because I know that the people that, you know, went to that store for years, I can guarantee are still going to that store.

57:49BubblemanThank you to them.

57:50SpeakerThey keep us in business. Thank you. Yes. Note though, I do want to say like about education too. I think that, um, That falls on the retailer, obviously quite a bit, but also, you know, falls on the retailers approach to staffing and what they ask that staff to do and contribute. When some retails choose to have the staff not engage with vendors, not engage with the whole process of vetting products for the shelves and things like that, they're removed from education and learning anything about the products, how evolving their understanding.

58:36SpeakerSo one of the things that Mark and I try to do is With all the vendors that come through, we share the load of vetting the products with our staff. It's an important part for us. Sharing, getting their opinions is very important to us as well as an acknowledgement that they're a different generation as well. But it helps them to evolve their understanding, see what's actually out there, compare and contrast, build their knowledge and their confidence and comfort on the floor.

59:10SpeakerAnd so, you know, one, they learn a lot. And two, their delivery is enforced. I mean, that's the other negative thing too, a forced delivery of all this knowledge that everybody wants to share on a customer that is just trying to get high. You know, it's counterproductive, but that armed with that knowledge and like a confidence and comfortable approach, it's again, more focused on building that relationship with that consumer for the moments that you do have.

59:41SpeakerAnd so I think that the education part, you know, The education of the bud tenders, the inclusion of the bud tenders, the staff, that's key and important if education is important to you as a retail and your responsibility to the industry to help move the consumer understanding forward. You know, it's risk on all sides, as we acknowledged. But really, at the end of the day, you can't learn if the example isn't there.

1:00:15SpeakerIf there's no contrast to the peak trends by general admission, then what are these people going to learn from? So the risk of having it on your shelf, the risk of the producer pushing that out instead of something that's more mass adopted, you know, this is the shared risk that we're talking about, but the small shared risk that we can take as producers and retailers for the goal of education and incrementally creating an environment and industry where there is better understanding, more openness, more curiosity.

1:00:45SpeakerAnd I think that's where we all want to be. But trying to, again, jump from zero to 10, impossible. It's doomed to fail. So incremental approach, taking like having a goal in mind, but like, you know, pivoting as you need to. But I think that's kind of the way forward for our model and the way we want to kind of see retail in this industry and this space.

1:01:12SpeakerWell, I think that's part of, you know, like you said, Dennis, that's why we've been, you know, successful to this point is our sort of curated, you know, we took a very different approach in the beginning when we opened our store. We don't have menus. We don't have a huge, massive inventory that's ballooned everywhere with like four or five hundred SKUs or more, you know, where it's more of a curated approach.

1:01:31SpeakerCustomers come in. We want to create those conversations, have those dialogues with the customers that actually want to. We all have those customers that come in and they're just like, Give me a single pre-roll. What do you got? I don't care. Just give it to me. And, you know, while I hate dealing with those experiences, we have been able to push some of those customers and get them to try new things.

1:01:51SpeakerLike you say, get off the peach rings, try a, you know, a rosin roll. Get off the peach rings. Try something different, right?

1:01:58BubblemanWe need to get you off the peach rings, bro. This is serious. Friends don't let friends wear mesh shoes or smoke peach rings. So we got to fucking figure this out. I will say that Canada doesn't make it easy. The packaging is terrible. The first store that I ever kind of, and I'm a head bro. Like I recognize brands and packaging and I understand what the industry is.

1:02:24BubblemanThe first time I walked into a store and it was craft greenery, Where I could be like, it was very clearly like, oh, these are all the hashes right here. And I could see, and this was at a point where the brands were starting to get like, oh, now I'm having a yellow jar. They were expanding a little bit out of just the black and white and yellow, all the same colors.

1:02:43BubblemanEverything looks the same. If you're a head and you go into a shop and everything looks the same, can you imagine what that looks like to a just regular everyday person? They're just like, holy fuck. So it creates an environment right off the bat. Thank you, Health Canada, where they're just going to be like, what should I get? Like, I just want to get like something that's this price for this kind of THC.

1:03:05BubblemanAnd it locks them in. I really look forward to a day Where we can get to a deli style where you can look at a jar and then buy five grams of that extract and just you guys scoop it out, compound it right there under camera, right onto the jar and sell it out the door. Obviously seeing cannabis this way when you can't see and smell cannabis and companies tried.

1:03:28BubblemanI saw companies try desperately. They were... Created the sniff jars. The one company, I can't remember who that was. It was one that I, yeah, they had smell pods. Maybe it was a leaf, leaf something, or I can't remember the name of this, the company. They were, they were big. They had quite a few stores. Anyway, I went in there. I said, oh, that's a really good idea.

1:03:48BubblemanHe says, yeah, it's a great idea, except they only last for like a day or two. And I'm like, oh, I'm like, well, at least you get to write it off. He's like, no, we don't get to write it off. I'm like, you don't get to write it off. Well, that's completely fucking ridiculous. Can you at least like give it to your employees? No, we're supposed to destroy it.

1:04:01BubblemanI'm like, what the fuck? That is the most ridiculous thing ever. Like just cutting you off at the knees if you want to go out of your way to make it so people can have Thank you for joining us.

1:04:22SpeakerIt's a win-win for them too.

1:04:24BubblemanI still think they're completely convinced that you need to protect children from cannabis. And it's why the majority of the insanity of the laws ensue. They truly believe. I tell people all the time, I was at a New Year's party. And of course, everyone was drinking alcohol. There was alcohol everywhere. I was actually there with Nate, Mark. And nice people, don't get me wrong, but all drinking.

1:04:47BubblemanAnd I brought all my pipes and the owner of the house was like, oh, what do you got there? I'm like, oh, they're electric pipes. He's like, oh, I'd love to check those out. So I pull them out and put them on the counter. And his wife comes over. She's like, what are you guys doing here? And I was like, oh, we're just, you know, going to do some dabs.

1:05:01BubblemanYou know, I suggested I would go outside, but your husband said I could just do it right here. But if you like, I could. She's like, well, you know, like just that there's children, there's children running around. I'm like, I know, but like it's a medicine and what you're drinking is a poison. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:05:29BubblemanYou know, I use those opportunities not to make someone uncomfortable, but to realize that it's a very important time and place that we're in right now. And doing all of the things that we're doing is incredible. But taking the opportunity in an uncomfortable situation to say a truth to someone who is clearly like, listen, I said to her, look, of course, I'm not going to. Smoke weed around your kids.

1:05:52BubblemanBut isn't it interesting how you have no problem drinking alcohol around mine when your drug kills people and mine doesn't? And she had nothing to say to that. She was just like, like, what are you going to say to that?

1:06:07SpeakerMy drink's empty.

1:06:09BubblemanYeah, I'm going to go get another drink. You know, I'm not trying to shit on alcohol. I'd fight for people's rights to do whatever they want to do. But I do. I've always found the hypocrisy interesting. We have a beach in Lions Bay and people go to the beach all summer long and you're not supposed to drink alcohol on the beach. Thank you for watching.

1:06:47BubblemanThank you for watching.

1:07:08BubblemanMy cousin's son, Ben, rest in peace, Ben. He was 22 years old. He was going to be an NHL superstar. He was going to be in the likes of Conor Bedard and McElraney and Crosby. Like this kid was special. He got involved with the wrong people, got into drugs a little bit, and then got into alcohol. Thank you for watching.

1:07:54Bubblemanare very important for people who are trying to reduce their alcohol intake and who are trying to reduce the intake of other drugs that they have. I don't look at cannabis as a gateway drug to do other drugs. I look at cannabis as a drug to help people get off of things that are detrimental to them and Soul-sucking alcohol is a big one. I saw, and I don't know how true it is, that there's been massive losses in alcohol in this last year, that people are drinking like 30 to 40 to 50% less, which represents tens of billions of dollars in lost alcohol sales, which I would hope turns into cannabis sales for you guys.

1:08:37SpeakerYeah.

1:08:38BubblemanGo ahead, Matt.

1:08:39SpeakerWell, I was going to say it's been tough for us to compete with alcohol consumption only because we haven't had, you know, like 10 packs and 10 packs of gummies, for instance. And now, like one of the companies that I'm really impressed with and I like working with is Rubicon. They're a larger company, but, you know, Mickey is awesome at strain selection and he's done some amazing partnerships with Gastown.

1:09:02SpeakerAnd, you know, I just they've just released these 10 pack of 10 milligram rosin gummies. And You know, I used to think that I needed 100 milligrams. I had three of those the other night and I was like, I was passing out in bed. So, you know, we finally have like a product that kind of matches a 24 or 12 pack of beer that you can eat and you can consume and you can have the same relaxation effect of a couple of beers.

1:09:28SpeakerAnd, you know, I'm really excited about that because it wasn't really economical prior to the launch of the 10-pack gummy skew. It was always kind of a little bit too expensive. But now, like in our store, you can buy a 10-pack of really good raws and edibles for under 40 bucks, which is, you know, really dope. And they're tested. Yeah, yeah, you got the spinach box.

1:09:50BubblemanYeah, but those, my daughter bought me this for Christmas. This is what she got me. She got me a sativa and an indica or hybrid, 10 packs in each one. And let me tell you, when I ate shit yesterday on the mountain, like so bad, I'm talking 80 kilometers an hour, right at the bottom of the mountain in the hard packed snow. I hit a bump. It twisted my snowboard.

1:10:10BubblemanI grabbed, I did a full scorpion. I flipped over. It was so violent and so devastating. I thought, holy shit, like I'm going to be in the hospital for six months and And man, I am okay. A couple of these every like three or four hours. And it's just unbelievable how it melts the pain away. Yeah.

1:10:30SpeakerAnd those are now available in all three of our shops. And, you know, and those are really affordable. That's a 10 pack of gummies. We sell those for 20 bucks. And like, that's, that's two, three nights right there. And that's way more economical than, you know, somebody drinking and it's way more better for your system. So yeah. Yeah.

1:10:49BubblemanThe gummies and the beverages, you know, they're a tough one for the legal market. You know, I've got a buddy who operates in the in the black market and I go over to his place and he's got five gallon buckets and they're full to the rim with 30 milligram gummies. They're beautiful gummies. They're so well made and he's selling them wholesale for like a buck. And I'm just like, what the fuck, dude?

1:11:11BubblemanLike who is competing with this guy in the legal market? Now, two bucks a pack, that's getting reasonable. But when it's $5 for a 10 milligram gummy, that means one of his gummies in the same price is $15 retail before tax. And he's just retailing it for two bucks and wholesaling it for $1. So it's like this weird kind of, You know, like there's a disconnect. I see it more in the edibles than I see it anywhere else.

1:11:41BubblemanI don't, I see the legal cannabis has devastated the black market of cannabis. It is not a monster market the way it once was. People don't have the value in the flower, but when it comes to vape pens and diamond crusted joints and gummies in particular, How the hell are they going to bridge that gap between... Because honestly, two bucks a gummy, what you just said, is amazing.

1:12:09BubblemanThat's a great price. That is so much better than what it was. But then when you hear my buddy has 30 milligram ones, and don't get me wrong, he's a total black market guy, website guy. He doesn't have a store. He's not selling them to people coming in. But it creates this sort of disconnect where I would hope that the Canadian government could... And let's be honest, like...

1:12:30BubblemanSelling milligrams of cannabinoids, and Dr. Mark could even chime in on this one, is, you know, I mean, it's where it's at. When you're selling a beverage with 10 milligrams in it, I mean, my God, what do you get out of a gram of distillate? Like 800, 900 plus milligrams?

1:12:48SpeakerHoly shit. Yeah, so if you get a 10 milligram drink in like a 12 ounce can, That is 0.028 weight percent. So that's an order of magnitude lower than the 0.3 threshold that was arbitrarily set here in the U.S. as defining hemp from cannabis, or from marijuana, they call it, right? That 0.3% was never intended to be used for formulated products. I think that came out in Trump's executive order or they're going to try to tighten up some of that.

1:13:35SpeakerBut the interesting thing about the executive order is, again, they were trying to carve out the

1:13:47SpeakerI think that executive order really was nothing but a bunch of hot air to distract from the Epstein files and everything else that is needed to distract from in this day and age.

1:13:59BubblemanYou mean he didn't kill himself? Happy New Year, everybody.

1:14:02SpeakerThank you so much for joining us today.

1:14:24BubblemanIn Quebec, which I should be doing this month. I am going to Colorado this month. So I'll be in Colorado from the 11th to the 16th. I've got a bunch of stuff going on over there. And then I should be heading down to... We're back at the end of January because I got to go over to New York and all this other stuff. It's starting to happen for me, Dr. Mark.

1:14:50SpeakerYeah, so when you're in Farnham, Mark, you're only like about what, like an hour and 15 minutes away from me.

1:14:55BubblemanYes, I know. That's crazy. I'm in the middle of nowhere, Quebec, and this guy lives an hour away.

1:15:02SpeakerI know. We need to make it happen. I mean, I was so bummed that I was unable to go to BizCon this year. It looks like you had a... A fun time for your first adventure down to the US.

1:15:15BubblemanI got over, I got the Wook Flu as well. So I didn't get the fish Wook Flu. I got the BizCon.

1:15:21SpeakerI got the fish strain at Madison Square Garden, which by the way, was a wonderful show. It was, the gag was all about milk. You could Google it. There's lots of images and videos up there. But yeah, it was just really fun. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:16:02BubblemanI'm with you, man. I am with you. My New Year's resolution is to see more amazing hash in the Canadian market. And I see it like I see the sauce guys over on the East Coast, Hugo and the boys like they're they're pumping out some pretty nice shit. Brindle Farms has always been pumping out some nice shit. I don't know what's going to happen to high fidelity because Caitlin had a baby.

1:16:26BubblemanAnd I'm not sure how much hash she's washing up these days. She looks pretty like clicked into motherhood and looks pretty happy. So she's going to have to train some other people to make that nice high fidelity. And then of course. Chay from Rosebud. Absolutely beautiful flavors. It's just nice to see that there, you know, I see people all the time. Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:16:51BubblemanAnd it's just like, dude, I think you understand that we've been fighting for access for decades. And now people have access, even if it's not the access that you per se wanted. The fact that people are working on this, it's like, why work against them? Why not just facilitate and make things easier and make it so it's like, yeah, we have this I'll never forget walking in, not having any resin, sitting with a buddy in his car.

1:17:15BubblemanWe both had brand new pivots. And I've told this story a few times. And he's like, you got any rosin? I'm like, yeah, I got some rosin. I go to grab my jar and I forgot it at his house in Langley. I completely forgot the hash. We drove all the way to downtown Vancouver. I'm like, holy shit. He's like, fuck, dude, I've never wanted to smoke a thing so badly because I can't.

1:17:34BubblemanAnd I said, well, wait a minute. I said, look, there's a store right on the corner over there. We were sitting at this amazing sort of live crab Chinese restaurant that his buddy owns that's very close to the P&E on Hastings. And right across the street from this restaurant is like, I think it's an Eggs Canna is the store that's right on the corner of Hastings and whatever street this guy's restaurant is nearby.

1:17:57BubblemanSo we walk over, we buy a gram of Caitlin's high fidelity rosin. And we come back to the car and it was cheap. Like it was expensive. It was like 70 Canadian dollars or whatever, which is probably like 50, 50 US or whatever. So within the range of reasonableness, but certainly not a great deal. But in that moment, it wasn't about the fucking deal. It was about the access that we were given.

1:18:21BubblemanThe fact that a fucking store A hundred feet away from where we were sitting in a parking lot had this amazing rosin that was grown by my friends and washed by my friends and pressed by my friends and brought to market by my friends. I thought, this is fucking unbelievable. This is the win that no one's celebrating because we're all so, you know, you get into that little rut and now you're just like, okay, we've got to survive.

1:18:48BubblemanWe've got to make sure we're doing this. You've got to keep your head on so tight in this business. That I've always felt we don't celebrate our wins very well in the cannabis community and industry. We should be celebrating, bro. We have federally legal cannabis. And the biggest complaint we have is Health Canada taxing us and not allowing us to market properly. I remember when they used to shoot your dog, take your kids and put you in jail.

1:19:12BubblemanSo I think we're in a better place.

1:19:15SpeakerYeah. Oh, 100%. And shout out to companies like Puffco. They created these more user-friendly devices, which is going to help grow that concentrate customer demographic, right? Dude, it's massive. That's a huge part of it, right?

1:19:28BubblemanThat is a massive part of it. The fact that people don't realize the work that Puffco and companies like them, although no company is on the level of Puffco in regards to how many people they're touching with these devices, it's absolutely astonishing. Prior to that, Thank you for watching.

1:20:05BubblemanThank you for joining us.

1:20:23BubblemanAnd for a fish show, for someone to say like, whoa, I've never seen that before, was like, yeah, dude, that's right. You never have, motherfucker. We are straight doing oil dabs at the taper section.

1:20:34SpeakerI was going to ask you about your New Year's Eve party experience. So was there tobacco consumption happening there? And did that woman direct people to go outside for tobacco?

1:20:44BubblemanNo tobacco consumption. In fact, when I went outside to have the dab, this is the funniest part, Dr. Mark. Only one person came out with me, and it was the woman. And she smashed that fucking Puffco like five times before going back inside. So it wasn't like she was super anti-cannabis. She was just like in this mentality of like, well, the children. I'm like, well, yeah, the children, like you're drinking alcohol in front of them.

1:21:07BubblemanLike, what are you thinking?

1:21:09SpeakerOh, you mean the weed? She just wanted to go outside and rip that all with, you know, by herself.

1:21:14BubblemanYeah, I couldn't believe it. I filled two Puffco's. I filled two Peaks and a proxy and I went outside thinking that five people were going to follow me and nobody came out except her.

1:21:27SpeakerI grew up in the backseat of a 64 Bonneville station wagon with two smoking parents and clothes.

1:21:36BubblemanSo, yeah, I mean, I'm also from said generation. Yeah.

1:21:39SpeakerAnd I also remember like New Year's Eve parties, like when I was young, my parents parties and people be smoking all over the place, you know? So it's like, where the fuck was the concern around secondhand smoke and kids back then? But it's like, oh, now you got to be careful. You know, we don't want to.

1:21:57BubblemanWell, it was Marcus Welby. Don't you remember? I'm Marcus Welby. I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV. And he's just like, cigarettes are good. He had the lab coat. People were like, oh, fuck, cigarettes are good? Well, fucking good thing, because I'm totally addicted to them. But no, Vancouver is a very... We shame the tobacco smokers here. We're very much like California. It's just all leaked up here.

1:22:21BubblemanTo be a cigarette smoker in Vancouver is bravery because many, many people will just say something. If you're just out on the street smoking, someone will just be like, ah, Thank you so much for joining us.

1:22:59SpeakerBut often like outside clubs and restaurants, you'll have a bunch of cigarette smokers. And it's almost like you have to walk through this curtain of cigarette smoke to get into a non-cigarette smoking environment. It's just disgusting. So if you go to a club in Vancouver, are you smoking outside the club or do they have a special smoking area for tobacco consumption? Yep. Usually it's just outside. Some might have a patio.

1:23:29BubblemanAnywhere you can smoke tobacco, you can smoke joints. That's basically how it works in Vancouver.

1:23:35SpeakerSo it's just general smoking section, right? So if they don't allow it inside the building... Are there just people gathered in front of the buildings?

1:23:46BubblemanSo in order to walk, you're much more likely to get away with smoking a joint at a concert inside than than you ever would with a cigarette. You'd like 10 joints in a row and be fine. You like one cigarette. You're getting kicked out of that venue.

1:23:58SpeakerYeah, I was just at a concert before Christmas and we were smoking joints on the dance floor.

1:24:04BubblemanSo yeah, I know I agree with Marcus.

1:24:05SpeakerIt's more socially acceptable in Vancouver to light a joint even inside at a concert than a cigarette. Like no chance on the cigarette. Do you guys see a lot of those, what we call douche flutes? You know, these kinds of things. I got one. Oh my God. You guys are hilarious.

1:24:25BubblemanDouche flutes. They both have one.

1:24:27SpeakerI mean, the volume of vapor that comes out of those things. I mean, like this guy in front of me at the show the other night was sucking on his douche flute. And when he would blow out a thing of smoke, it was like an endless stream of smoke. And I'll tell you what, it smelled like the gummies that were in my pocket. It had kind of like a strawberry, fruity, vanilla kind of smell.

1:24:51BubblemanI had a guy at a government mule concert and we figured he must have had the brand new fentanyl pen because he hit this fucking pen next to me. He's right next to me. And like, you know, he's kind of nodding afterwards. And my buddy's behind me is poking his girlfriend. He's like, Hey, there's something wrong with your guy. And she's like, mind your own fucking business and turns back around.

1:25:18BubblemanAnd minutes like a minute later, this guy was like, Like maybe dead. I don't know. He just passed out on my lap, of course, because I'm right next to him. So now he's lying on my lap. We had to stop the concert. We were in like the third row. So like Warren Haynes, the whole band is right there watching this. They're watching the whole, you know, ambulance comes in.

1:25:40BubblemanThey fucking stretcher this guy out. This guy is right next to me. And the funny thing was I was smoking. Hash hits the whole time. I was like literally burning and smoking hash hits the entire time. I remember smelling his. He took a hit of this vape pen and it kind of wafted over and I smelt it and was like, ooh, that was a weird fucking thing.

1:26:01BubblemanSo I don't know if a fentanyl or an opioid pen exists or if that's just delusions, but this guy OD'd off whatever he hit and it was not DMT. Like he was gone. It was super trippy. Yeah.

1:26:14SpeakerYou're sitting right next to you like he's your buddy and the people are like, look at Mark. He was in my lap, bro. He passed out.

1:26:19BubblemanHis head was in my lap.

1:26:21SpeakerWent from none of your business to all your business basically.

1:26:24BubblemanAnd then they had to leave. Both of them left. My friend helped bring the guy to the ambulance. My friend was on like tons of mushrooms. He comes back and he's like, he's like, where's my jacket? I'm like, I don't know, dude, you picked it up before you left. He's like, oh my God. So he runs back outside. Hunt's the ambulance down. He left his jacket in the ambulance because he brought this guy basically high on mushrooms, overdosed right from the concert seat, my buddy, right into the ambulance.

1:26:51BubblemanI'm like, dude, you know, that was like going above and beyond like the ambulance. People could probably taken care of that. They have a stretcher. It was wild. It was wild. He's a good guy. He's a good guy.

1:27:03SpeakerYeah.

1:27:04BubblemanYeah, exactly. So here's a question for store owners and regulations. And I guess you just can't even promote the use of cannabis. Like you guys can't be like, Oh, go for a, you know, go for a walk around the park and smoke some joints or do like there's no, they want to disconnect you from the actual experience of cannabis and the actual purchasing of cannabis. You guys can't do that, right?

1:27:28SpeakerYeah, pretty much. Lifestyle, entertainment, anything associated with, we can't associate any of it with cannabis, so.

1:27:38BubblemanHow can they honestly enforce such a ridiculous rule?

1:27:42SpeakerWell, I was going to share this stat a little bit earlier when we were talking about Health Canada and it's 98% of all infractions, of all cited infractions are because somebody ratted you out and it's usually one of your competitors. I've been through it myself with a local competitor a few years ago. So yes, it's...

1:28:01BubblemanSo this is a very interesting topic you brought up and I'm so excited about it because I've been talking about this for a while. When did the entire cannabis industry turn into rats? Because back in the day, it was that you couldn't do it. Like, and when I say that I'm talking, there is such a high percentage of people in the cannabis industry who are ratting out their competition on Instagram to get their accounts closed.

1:28:25BubblemanIt's like a guarantee. This is what's happening. It's such a fucked up thing. To like, I just never would have seen a group who was like so and I get it that that group is not the same group and many new people have come in and I'm not one of these people personally that sees a higher value in you if you've been involved for a long time.

1:28:48BubblemanA longer period of time. I mean, it's a guarantee that someone's going to come along and do this better than all of us. It's just a guarantee. It's going to happen. And it doesn't matter if they weren't here 25 years ago, breaking the law and making money off prohibition. I still feel like if you can come into the industry and do something good and make products available and hit all these sort of You know, positive notes.

1:29:13BubblemanThen I, you know, and that really comes from the school of David Watson, who he always said to me, he said, you know why it doesn't bug me? And I said, no, I don't understand why it doesn't bug you. He says, cause I don't care who profits. I just want it to be accessible. And if I care who profits, that's when you get really choked about it.

1:29:31BubblemanThat's when you get passionate about cannabis, because if you are worried about who, and obviously to a sense, we're all worried about it because we all work in the cannabis industry. And of course it would be nice for all of us to profit so we can pay our bills and care for our families and all of these things. But yeah, the less you care about who profits, oh, like fucking Canopy, they shouldn't be allowed to.

1:29:55BubblemanIt's like, who cares? Like, fuck it. They've got judges and police officers. I'm like, good, good. Fuck better than them being judges and police officers. You know what I mean? Like people would just be so choked and upset. And I was just more like, good, like the more the merrier, like let's get all the cops to leave prohibition mentality behind and be, you know, more cops involved in a company, probably more cops start buying cannabis.

1:30:18BubblemanSo I never went to that natural school of like, wait a minute, these motherfuckers just are coming in to hijack the industry. It's like, listen, Prohibition tried to hijack the industry and lost miserably, and they spent billions of dollars. So you really think like pharma and alcohol and tobacco were going to come in and control it? You're delusional. Cannabis is bigger than all of them by miles, miles and miles.

1:30:42BubblemanAnd I truly believe that. I saw it with Prohibition. In the 16th century, they would line the Sufis up in the square in Cairo. They would stick their fingers down their throat, and if they threw up green, It meant they were hashish eaters. And if they were hashish eaters, they would pull their teeth out with pliers. Well, guess what? They didn't stop eating hashish even after having their teeth pulled out with pliers.

1:31:03BubblemanAnd that was in the 16th fucking century. That's way beyond the DEA kicking your door down and shooting your dog and taking your kids. They were ripping their fucking teeth out of their skulls live in the square. So I don't believe that anything is bigger or stronger than cannabis. They can all try their desperate little ways and schedule this and schedule that and try to control it.

1:31:26BubblemanBut just remember the control of prohibition was the greatest effort they ever put onto cannabis and we destroyed them. With no funding. How about that? They spent billions of dollars and we had nothing. We were just a bunch of hippies on dead tour. How about that? Yeah. Now we all have federal cannabis in Canada and it is absolutely coming to America. There's no doubt about it. You can't put that back in the box.

1:31:56SpeakerI agree.

1:31:57BubblemanHow interesting would it be, guys, if America legalized and it was all the same in Canada and America and we created some unique rule where the stores could send products over the border, mail order. Imagine the U.S. market opening up to your stores.

1:32:15SpeakerYeah, that prospect. Can we just get Canada, Marcus? Like right now, we can't get across to Alberta. So, I mean, the States would be a dream. You know, can I take a moment just to ask anybody in Canada right now to do us all a favor? Write your local member of Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:32:59BubblemanWhen you go on to Fair Cannabis and you click on dispensary or whatever, or lounge, there's a call to action button. It's huge. And it says, I want to take action or something like that. And you click on it and then it goes down to the bottom page and it literally links you to the emails, to the people with what you need to do. We need to make the calls to action because your call to action is awesome.

1:33:21BubblemanSo if we can, and I know we can't just add anyone's member of parliament, but even if it's a website, this is where you'll find your member of parliament. You know, just send them an email. Maybe if you created a just a simple paragraph that could be copy and pasted that people could sign because in this day and age, people's focus have been stolen by these these things here.

1:33:45BubblemanAnd they get called to action, but then they see a cool video. Oh my God, look at this. This is crazy. The cat's getting electrocuted. I have to watch this. And the next thing you know, they're not fucking doing it anymore. So how can we in this show today, I can put it in the description. Maybe is there a Canadian or British Columbian website? Is it all of Canada when you say Collier?

1:34:05BubblemanYou're a member of parliament all across Canada. So there's got to be a federal page that like you can search for your parliamentary person. So why don't we start with we're going to put that in the description and then maybe we'll also compile a short little like what you want them to say, because if they say it wrong or they don't say it at all, It's the call to action was almost complete and then it disintegrated.

1:34:29BubblemanSo having that little, you know, add whatever you want. But this paragraph is super important because, yeah, like, holy shit, all BC ever did was ship cannabis across Canada and America. How the fuck are you going to? I didn't realize that you guys can't ship product out of the province. No, no, that is insane. But the brands can. If the boards list them, well, that's, of course they do.

1:34:57BubblemanLike I, my brand was in multiple provinces. I could ship it to Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario.

1:35:03SpeakerYou've got to get accepted into certain provinces like Ontario, BC.

1:35:06BubblemanI never got, I never, I never applied for a province and didn't get accepted. And I applied with my partners who had five or six other SKUs that they were applying for and all of them got denied. For me, I feel that BC will always accept me because I'm a BC story. And I feel like the rest of Canada would be silly not to accept. I'm embedded in the culture of hash.

1:35:30BubblemanThey're all calling it bubble hash. I coined the goddamn term. Like, of course, you got to let me got to let my brand into the into the province.

1:35:37SpeakerBut then you start talking to the regulators and they don't know. They don't know.

1:35:41BubblemanI had great conversations. The people in BC knew. They were very good. The guy in Manitoba, can't remember his name, but he was a buyer. I went to his house. He gave me great excitement for the potential future because the way I look at it now is these regulators, a lot of these people came from alcohol. They just snagged these jobs that came up because they already worked at the BCLDB or the liquor, whatever.

1:36:04BubblemanThey already work there. They gate kept these jobs. And so a lot of them are absolutely not cannabis people. This guy in Manitoba, who's the main buyer for the province, I went to his house and I'm telling you right away, I knew this guy does not have a girlfriend or a wife because every single room in his house All of that was full of cannabis. He had a rosin pressing room.

1:36:25BubblemanHe had tents, breeding projects, fucking bubble hash room, everything you can imagine. He was 3D printing one room. He was 3D printing components for his grow. Sensors and fucking pieces that held his little, like I was just blown away that this guy, he was the first person I ever met that was even into cannabis. And let me tell you, he was into cannabis as much as any one of us on this panel and maybe more.

1:36:53BubblemanAnd that's the buyer for Manitoba. So I wish I could remember his name. I want to say Dan or Mark or something, but great guy.

1:37:02SpeakerI know, like, I think we can speak to some experience that BC cultivators have, like, for instance, in Ontario, I know that, you know, one of my big partners here is Sweetgrass, and they used to have sales in Ontario, but it became too onerous to support the sell through and, you know, carry the labor of having a sales representation in Ontario, because you have to meet certain sell through requirements with the wholesale distributor.

1:37:29SpeakerAnd if you don't meet it, then they send the product back.

1:37:32BubblemanThat's right.

1:37:33SpeakerAnd so, you know, that's a huge challenge when, you know, markets are dominated by pay-to-play models, which, you know, we're blessed in BC. We don't quite have that. We kind of do, but we also don't. Whereas it's quite bad in the prairies in Ontario with pay-to-play stores and a lot of density and, you know, price sensitive shopping.

1:37:56BubblemanYeah, that's a problem for sure, you know, and the reality is it's not like it's necessarily trying to keep you out. The model they use to distribute is that model. So they're like, yeah, if we want to buy 10 pounds of something or 10 kilos, sorry, which that's what they bought of my hash joints. The first order we shipped was 10,000 grams to the OCS. And they were like, if you can't re-up, If you can't send us another 10,000, like when we want it.

1:38:28BubblemanAnd it could have been like, could have been 10 days for all we knew. They were like, we will, we'll punish you. We'll put you at the bottom of the list and we won't order your products again. And I was like, okay, so this is just, you know, Part of me looks at that and I'm like, fuck these guys, they're gatekeeping, they're doing this, they're doing that.

1:38:47BubblemanIt's like, well, or are they doing business on a level that if you can't get to that level, you just won't be congruent with that level of business. It's kind of like building high rise towers. Like, yeah, that costs like sometimes I think the last property in Vancouver sold for $200 million. Well, that's just not feasible for the rest of us to get into it. So do we sit around and say they're gatekeeping and keeping us out of the business?

1:39:11BubblemanThank you for joining us.

1:39:35Bubblemanis if ontario could develop a model within the model they have because you'll never convince them to not like to re create that model because it's the model that's the one that makes them all their money but we could potentially lobby for an internal model like an ipa model that that promotes more towards the craft the small stores to to allow them further you know For their entrance into the market, because I think it would be amazing if you guys could sell, you know, across the board as stores, not just brands.

1:40:10SpeakerYeah, because, you know, one of the benefits of direct delivery, which we kind of touched on earlier, is we can create products. So, you know, a really good example I would love the opportunity to speak on is Amani Craft. You know, our three stores used to sell a lot of the smalls and they used to be exclusive to direct delivery. You know, there became quite a demand for them to fulfill it because they're a small team.

1:40:33SpeakerIt's a husband and wife team. And so they had to list it on Central, which meant our kind of quasi direct delivery exclusive was now shared with all the stores in British Columbia. So to give us kind of something back, Amin and Anna created the 14 gram skew, which now you can get 14 grams of this, you know, everybody's favorite Imani Craft Gastropop. And you can get it now at our stores or any store that participates via direct delivery.

1:41:03SpeakerAnd it's super awesome because Amin recognized that we lost our little exclusive with the El Monte Craft Smalls, but so we needed something to replace it. And he was a great guy and he's come up with a 14 gram bag. And, you know, I know personally it was launched in the first month, first week of December and, You know, I've sold quite a few cases of it and it's really great weed.

1:41:24SpeakerLike this batch is 5.4% terps. It's stinky. Like, woof. Yeah, it's solid. I think it kind of shows a little bit of like, that graduation and progression that dennis touched on a little bit earlier too is like starting with a small group of people small scale expands from that to more direct delivery and from that side is like yeah we always want to see the growers win of course too right so if they get to the point where they're doing so well and they've scaled it up so consistently that they're now on central like that's a win-win and we can start working with them on Thank you for joining us.

1:42:16SpeakerI mean, part of it is also us just trying to have these conversations with these growers, because obviously we're retailers, we're the front line. We know what customers are asking for, what people are always looking for. So it's just, you know, creating those unique opportunities with formats. Like I'm pretty sure I was one of the guys that talked to a man about introducing that 3.5 smalls, I don't know, a year, a year and a half ago or something.

1:42:34SpeakerThat's just something to help him because he is a craft brand. You want to come up with your premium seven gram flour, but you need something to introduce those customers before they take that leap and trust your brand and spend all that money on a seven gram. So if you've got a pre-roll or a 3.5 smalls, it's a lower price for them to get in, try your brand, get that customer adoption, and then boom, they become loyal.

1:42:58SpeakerSo it's, yeah, no, it's... It's been fun having these conversations and going and meeting all these growers. And this is one of the things that Dennis does a really good job of is just flipping over these little rocks quickly, trying to find these opportunities. You know, he comes from that startup tech based background. So it's always the thing is I hear it all the time every week is hurry up, hurry up.

1:43:22SpeakerWe got to fail fast and move. And it's good and it's important. And that's why I think, you know, we've got a real balance between the two of us because he likes to move fast. I like to find stability in things. And I think together we, you know, we make a pretty damn good team. And I couldn't be happier working with anybody else. And in the end, Mark, it takes away all the guesswork from what we're talking about with sell through and, you know, all this other stuff.

1:43:49SpeakerThank you so much for joining us.

1:44:08SpeakerThat's been the best part of last year for us as far as we're concerned. The conversations, the collaboration, just the relationship building, the transparency, just the shared approach to launching it. It really, from our point of view, this is probably the most invested brand as far as we're concerned because of all the care and effort we've put into this shared journey with them. And kudos to Zach for really at the end of the day, he is a bit of a unicorn in the sense that his level of transparency and willingness was above and beyond.

1:44:55SpeakerIt created the environment for us to be able to make this kind of happen. And I think because we were able to have this experience, we were able to kind of vet some ideas of what we thought would work, find out what didn't work on both sides, see the realities of whether or not we could really kind of collaborate as partners. Rather than just transactional like vendor retailer relationships, you know, and, you know, don't get me wrong that those those are very important, too.

1:45:27SpeakerBut, you know, at the end of the day, I see cannabis as a social drug and it's about people connecting. Again, and this is another example of that. If Zach was not willing to to basically see under the hood, it probably would not have been as successful. And we would probably not think about his brand and his products the same way. There's a vested interest in our, you know, not only because we have the exclusive, but we actually, you know, I think I can speak for all of us.

1:46:03SpeakerWe give a shit about what happens to that brand and what happens to them. We care about their margins as well. And we want them to grow and survive. And we understand we're growing with them. So it's a mutual relationship. Totally. And Marcus, you'll like it even better because the whole thing started with a solventless rosin jar. Zach's first entry into market was live rosin only. He dropped an El Chapo, I think it was, that was just so gassy.

1:46:32SpeakerLike you open this jar and even if it was cold, it was still loud. And it was, you know, everybody got the head snap on it. And the head snap on a rosin jar in the legal world at that time, two years ago, was kind of rare. And so it was exciting. And yeah, you know, we all pursued that because we knew if you could make rosin, you know, poop in, poop out, fire in, fire out.

1:46:56SpeakerIf you could make that kind of rosin, it meant that your starting material was fucking amazing. And it really was. And, you know, that's kind of the thing that drove us all three together was we wanted his flour for our stores, but he was exporting it. Like, Standing orders. He didn't even have to talk to us if he didn't want to. It's a really cool kind of story.

1:47:21SpeakerThat's a lot of fun, actually.

1:47:22BubblemanYeah, you know, one of the things I see for the stores, you know, there's these subtle things that they disconnected from in the rules that would make sure that it didn't grow as fast as it possibly could grow. And the main one that I see, the real destroyer, is the lounges you know every one of your stores should have a lounge right next door to it or above it or wherever it can be and if you don't have that situation you want to figure that situation out because selling someone something is amazing but creating a setting where they can enjoy it and providing them like good food and like a good environment i can tell you because i had one of the first vapor lounges in vancouver back in 2003 called the melting point on commercial drive It was, and it didn't make sense at the time because I couldn't sell weed.

1:48:12BubblemanThat's why Dom and what's her name there? They moved right across the street from me and started DeKind on Commercial Drive. I basically had moved away from the pot block. I was like, you know what? I want to do a cannabis store, but I don't want all my employees to get their car, my employees, all my customers to get their cars broken into. I was like, I'll go over to Commercial Drive.

1:48:33BubblemanIt's a little bit more mellow than like, you know, the Hastings area. And but I wasn't able to sell wheat. All I was able to do was create an environment where people can come and use their weed. And it was amazing. The regulars that were created through that, the loyalty, the people that would just come back time and time again, I had a raw food, organic vegan cafe in there.

1:48:56BubblemanSo we made really good food and That's where Woody Harrelson used to come and visit us all the time and a local musician, Biff Naked, she was like a regular in there, another vegan. So we had some cool people that would come and kind of call it home and I just think that You know, that's where you, that's where you get them. Like when you have that space, if you go to Amsterdam and you look at any of the greenhouses, how Arianne created that success was through this really cool, hip environment that it's like, not only can I go buy a super silver haze, I can fucking smoke it right here while I drink a pear luza.

1:49:33BubblemanI'm in. And so we need that in Canada desperately. I think we're missing a big part of like selling someone something so awesome that they go away and do it somewhere else where if you could be in control of the setting and the set, that whole environment while those people are doing that, now you're even not only curating a menu, you're creating the experience that the menu gives you.

1:49:57BubblemanAnd I think that that is what i would be fighting for as hard as possible if i owned a store especially craft greenery because you guys have a space literally right next door yeah yeah that's uh it might be might be something in the works oh my god dude i mean listen book club has already defined and shown if they wanted to run that as a business they did for a while and companies paid them sponsorships and it was a private venue and this that and the other thing and You can do it like Spain where you make it a private club so it's not public.

1:50:30BubblemanBut in reality, it should be lobbied for and fought for. You know, you kind of probably it's going to be a hard set unless you open a private like cigar type club to ever have smoke indoors. Vancouver is just mental for that. Maybe you could have a special room, but I don't know. I think dabbing and vaping and beverages and gummies could, you know, possibly be the thing.

1:50:54BubblemanBut Maybe a rooftop patio for someone and then you can have joints. I don't know, but I think we desperately need lounges.

1:51:01SpeakerYeah, it's just going to help amplify that experience for the customer. And especially now in Vancouver, where everybody's getting forced into condos and they can't vape, they can't smoke on the property. I had one guy, we're just here, Kingsway Boundary. He moved into the new building. Well, it's a newer towers on Kingsway and Boundary there. Came in, came in to grab a pre-roll. Literally just moved in that day, came in the next morning and was like, I went out on my balcony, I took a rep for my bong, I went back inside, I went to bed, I got up in the morning, there was a note under my door already saying like, you can't smoke in the building.

1:51:35SpeakerAnd he was like, literally like, do they got cameras, sensors? Like, what's the deal? So people are forced to... Find somewhere to consume and you know you're outside in Vancouver here it's shitty cold rainy I mean that's not really adding to a pleasant cannabis experience but if you sit somewhere nicely and have a conversation.

1:51:53BubblemanYou can educate on such a higher level when you have a lounge and a space and people are now not just in your store buying and trying to get out you can really bring them to a different place and it's uh They need a place to go.

1:52:35BubblemanOh my God, like if I wasn't, just didn't take a puff out of this one and then just didn't take a puff out of that one, I would have never known the difference. And that's what I saw when Mark had Hemp BC and Blunt Brothers and these sort of small places that allowed people to come and exist and meet each other, you know, from traveling. Often they weren't all from BC, they were from all over the place.

1:52:57BubblemanAnd to be able to enjoy cannabis together, You know, now all of a sudden they're educating each other. It's not your job anymore. You've educated the guy that's come in and bought the heady flower, but now he's at the table educating the people from North Carolina that just came in with the peach rings joint and he's begging them not to light it because he can smell it just from the container opening and he's over there to do God's work in a hurry.

1:53:23BubblemanYeah.

1:53:25SpeakerAnd Peach Rings, it made it back in again. Yeah, to be fair, we're talking about the Peach Rings general mission, not the strain to talk to you. Which came first? Which came first? The strain, I think, I hope.

1:53:39BubblemanI hope so, too, because I would never name a cult of our Peach Rings after that, after smelling or experiencing that joint. I'd be like, we need to move ourselves away from this as far as possible. Although who knows, maybe end up selling a ton of it to people that are like hoping for that peach rings joint.

1:53:58SpeakerYeah, maybe, maybe. Do you think that maybe, maybe it's a, there's too much of a dissociation between like the experience part of the cannabis journey or the whole, you know, that, that the feeling part, because to me, it's, it's three quarters of the whole high, the whole experience, the high itself. And there's, There seems to be like still like a de-emphasis on that part of it. And I think part of it was probably... Because we're not allowed to share that part.

1:54:30SpeakerYeah, but I think there is, you know...

1:54:38SpeakerI think that's the mark of anybody that's legacy, finding the ways to the workarounds and living in the gray. But I think that is almost another hindrance because I know for me, my early days, I cared less about the upfront, the look, the smell. I cared more about just like what the high did. And it wasn't until actually that I was, I still remember I went to Berkeley Patients Care Collective in Berkeley.

1:55:06SpeakerI got a super silver haze and a Cali mist. I had them side by side. I was able to kind of smell and all the differences and stuff, but it was the smoke and the high that was clearly distinct that opened my eyes and it got me interested in like, okay, well, what else is there behind this? You know, I didn't, I thought it was just a one-dimensional kind of experience.

1:55:28SpeakerYou know, I think the emphasis on the smell, the look, you know, is important. But I think only important in the sense that it's supposed to give you some sort of indication of what that high experience is going to be like.

1:55:42BubblemanWell, it's how well tuned is your olfactory, right? Because it's like when you see something in your mouthwaters, that's literally your body and your mind and your soul telling you, I like this. You know, and so and that's the other thing of a lounge, if we could actually have other flavors in the air, people might be smoking theirs going, holy shit, do you smell that? What's that?

1:56:02BubblemanI gotta go ask the guy, I gotta find out. And suddenly, it's like, it's just going to expand your sales by a by a 20 fold, you know, having people be able to be in your space. And in Canada, I know it's never going to be probably for a very long time in one space, but we can get away with the Thank you so much for joining us.

1:56:40BubblemanHappy Isle. And he owns the whole building. So he owns the apartment upstairs. I'm like, dude, why are you renting that apartment out when you could just make it like a really cool private like club where it's like Horseshoe Bay is the fairies. Like imagine having a place to go on a rainy day where you could just go and smoke a joint inside in Horseshoe Bay. I'm like, dude, this is a no brainer.

1:57:01BubblemanAnd he was like, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll just rent it to my manager. And I was just like, dude, if I had a store right now, Thank you so much for watching.

1:57:25BubblemanIt cost me like $1,400 at the time. I gave them a volcano and I said, you take this to your scientists and to your labs. We test the material. We're operating at around 450 degree Fahrenheit, nothing higher. Let us know if you find anything. And they never came back ever once. So we can definitely get away in Vancouver with vaporizing. Burning, very different scenario. Might have to pull like a, you know, a very specific room, which those rooms are never good.

1:57:55BubblemanThey're never enjoyable. Those smoking rooms, to me, it would have to be an outside thing or whatnot. But just being able to have people be able to sit down together, show each other the things they bought, roll a joint and go outside and smoke it or take a dab or hit a vaporizer to me is... I think it's what we're waiting for. I think it's the big thing we're waiting for.

1:58:16BubblemanThat's going to be the breakthrough. That will increase your numbers in a way that I don't think anything has yet to date on that level. And it doesn't have to be big. You don't even have to have a big space. You could do it with a very small space.

1:58:35SpeakerAnd even just like not even from the consumer point of view, but having places like book club getting a chance to meet the producers and the growers in that environment.

1:58:44BubblemanThe business perspective of it, renting it out to companies like Sweet Justice and whoever to do these events and stuff was a no brain. I honestly, when I saw it, I thought, holy fuck, is this a smart, good idea? And I literally thought we were going to have a hundred of them like in six months and nobody moved on it. I was kind of like, okay, like people are overextended.

1:59:04SpeakerNo, no, we got two, we got two more coming online.

1:59:08BubblemanYeah, but that's not a hundred and coming online isn't now. So I'm just saying like book club's been operational for years and it's been crushing it and he does it in a building that he sells weed out of legally. So he figured it out. That is unbelievable to me. I implore all of you, figure that out. Maybe it's a collective. Maybe it's a space that's between your stores kind of equally and that you guys have a play on that because having a place where people can come and enjoy the products that you sell them is everything.

1:59:43BubblemanBecause now you have a place that you can invite your growers to. Oh, you like that? Well, that grower and that whole team? They're coming here tomorrow. They're going to be here from one to three and they got flavors and they're going to be doing a little presentation and they're like, for me, what I always wanted, I wanted Bubble Man's World. That was my, you know, it was called Melting Point originally, but I thought if I could get my own lounges and just turn it into Bubble Man's World, what's Bubble Man's World?

2:00:08BubblemanWell, it's like, Maybe on Sundays we're filming Hash Church out of the place. You know, maybe it's got, I always thought when it came to cannabis that I wanted to offer people the most exceptional food. You know, just like really delicious food that's like of high quality and caliber. Like, so you're selling the best weed, but now you're going to give me a Snickers bar and a Coke.

2:00:27BubblemanThat's the mentality we're working under right now. Like for some reason you're just the... Thank you so much for joining us.

2:00:57BubblemanAnd yeah, we crushed it. We rocked it out. We had a blast. I told the police because the police would come in and they'd be like, oh, you just let people use cannabis in here. I said, well, listen, people in Canada have medical exemptions. And in Canada, it's illegal to ask someone about their medical status. Thank you for watching.

2:01:36BubblemanAnd she said, I know you have a grow here. I just know it. And I said, what? She said, I think you have a grow here. So I walked her through the entire building. And at that point, I had all three floors. I had the downstairs, the main floor, and the apartments upstairs. And so I walked them at the end. I walked her by this one door in the corner that was like a three foot by three foot, um,

2:02:00SpeakerCloset.

2:02:01BubblemanAnd what I kept in this closet was crystals. And because when I was going to do advertising for my store, I thought, why don't I just buy like 30 grand worth of crystals and that'll be my advertising. I'll just give people crystals and I'll have crystals on display and it'll just be this really cool PZO electric morphogenetic resonance. You know, area that I create. And so at the end, she's like, well, what about this room?

2:02:24BubblemanIs that where the grow is? I noticed it's the one door you wouldn't open. So I opened it and I said, these are my crystals. And she's just like, this is like a hardcore, like hardcore, Like lesbian police officer, anti-weed, so upset with me. And I just, when I gave her this crystal, she lit up, she just lit up. And all of a sudden we were friends and I know we were friends because the next day she showed up at night.

2:02:51BubblemanWe had a gallery opening with Marble Slinger and the Degenerate Art Show. And she showed up with her girlfriend and she was, she was showing her girlfriend around and being like, hey, check this out. And oh, these are where the crystals are over here. In a totally different way. So, you know, I would love to see one day a bubble man's world where I have that food and I have that, you know, that space.

2:03:13BubblemanBut I would implore each and every one of you to look into that as well, because you all are unique and different. And one of the things I thought was cool about Vapor Lounges was that you could have like. The Sporto Vapor Lounge where it's all sports and yeah I'm gonna go watch my hockey and my football or you can have like the heady like super hippie version or you can have the super new wave appley kind of let's just do it all and see what people like.

2:03:38Etienne FontanWe did a thing called Operation Charm and Disarm back in the day when I was opening up a dispensary in Nevada, in Incline Village, Nevada, and people were like, holy fucking shit. Literally, they created two separate agencies or organizations that were anti what we were doing, okay? So one of the things that we did was we came up with Operation Charm and Disarm. Invite the public in.

2:04:06Etienne FontanThank you so much for joining us.

2:04:28Etienne FontanWhen you engage with them, guess who was one of the first people in our dispensary? The local people who were the anti-organizations. We had brought them in, showed them exactly what we were doing, and they realized, oh shit, this isn't some crazy drug, Dan. This isn't a bunch of crazy shit going on. It's just humans getting together and hanging out, and it's not a problem. And when you do that, yeah, like I said, the first day there for sales, those two organizations, their leaders were there to purchase cannabis.

2:04:56Etienne FontanOkay, so that's how effective you can be when you don't hide and when you engage them because if you're not doing anything illegal and you've skirted, you know, the system and they're coming through, then there's no reason to hide anymore. I mean, if anything, show your pride, show your community and your community will respond, right, Marcus? I mean, your community responded in kind, right? Right.

2:05:17BubblemanYeah, I mean, they definitely came and hung out and enjoyed it. It was just an anomaly. It was way before its time, which kind of sucked. But I really think that it's now past its time and it needs to happen. And people need to have these private clubs. It makes no sense. And then just flip them into... A legal lounge eventually, but the private club is nice because you can kind of do what you want.

2:05:38BubblemanI mean, they're smoking. That Van Gyption guy would literally start a house fire at book club, like a house fire. I'd look over and it would just be this crazy billowing black smoke off of this. Like, I don't even know what the fuck it was. So I put 28 grams of bubble hash and I put like 14 grams of flour and I then I put seven grams of oil and I'm just like, oh, my God, dude, like I was.

2:06:00BubblemanOK, let me start with this. If you do do a lounge please appreciate the people who are in the lounge and make sure that you have or a private club for instance a lot of us are growers we know how to remove air from a room it's not a difficult thing if i had one gripe with book club it was that they never got that right i saw them try a few times they sure got a lot right so no critique here i Thank you so much for joining us.

2:06:29BubblemanWe'll see you next time.

2:06:53BubblemanWell, you know, because there's now so many things to do. I'll tell you one thing. People are diluted. They're already doing. Everyone's doing something. And the somethings that we're doing are costing 10 times more than they used to. And we're all making half of what we used to. So I think that has a lot to do with why, you know, back in the day, a lounge would have been like, oh, you're doing a lounge?

2:07:18BubblemanOh, so you're like just selling packs on the side and this is how you're laundering your money? It's like, yeah. Basically, it's like a lounge was just like you just had money to burn. Like, I'm going to just do a lounge. Now, I don't know if people see. First of all, it makes no sense if you don't have a store because you got to get the sales.

2:07:35BubblemanYou got to get the sales. So even if you don't have a store, if you open next to a store, which I'm sure that's going to happen, that's pretty slick. You know, open a lounge next to the BC cannabis store. Just be like, yeah, here we got a lounge. Come check it out. You know, like, yeah. Grab every single one of their customers. Go ahead, Mark.

2:07:54SpeakerATN, ATN, when they showed up, were you wearing that shirt? What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Look at that shirt. Oh my God.

2:08:05BubblemanDude, everything about that shirt tells me I like ATN.

2:08:09SpeakerYes, it's a baller shirt. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the shirts that Paige at Fish wears. Paige usually wears very colorful shirts like that. Happy New Year to you, my brother ATN.

2:08:22Etienne Fontanand happy new year to you and all of you wonderful hash and cannabis absorbing people and uh yeah love love the conversation here sorry i was a little late it's i'm still in maui so it's two hours behind so it's it's that's why he's wearing the shirt he's in maui i got whales jumping out here i literally have seen 11 turtles come out right in front of where i'm staying and lay eggs So I mean, it's been incredible.

2:08:49Etienne FontanI didn't know this, but turtles go back to where they're born. They literally get an imprint when they're born. Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:09:18SpeakerAnd here we are just, you know, four, some four retailers and then on the courts and stuff and all of a sudden Michael Jordan steps on the court. So this is, this is like, this is pretty awesome.

2:09:29Etienne FontanI had no idea that you were going to be part of it. I put my pants on the same way you do, one leg at a time. And I packed my bowl one hash bowl at a time. No, it's all good. Look, I'm a retailer too, you know, so I have been fascinated by this as well as, you know, we were an illegal club originally that we had on-site consumption and we had volcanoes set up so that people could use and they would come in, exchange an ID.

2:09:55Etienne FontanAnd, you know, they could sit down and use and people enjoyed that. Mostly importantly, it was important because federal housing, you can't smoke or vaporize. And so a lot of people who live in federal housing need a place to go and to hang out so that they don't literally get kicked out of their housing. So, you know, we were always willing to do that. But another thing you got to watch out for when you have on-site consumption is people pass out.

2:10:22Etienne FontanAnd that's a reality that has happened. And dating back to 99, if you what we call bounced, right, you passed out, you would call 911. You know, that's it. You got to deal with the situation in the recording. But another thing that we came up with was a contraindication form. Not everybody vibes with cannabis well. Sometimes people have medications. We had people literally come from surgery at a hospital and medicate, okay?

2:10:49Etienne FontanBecause it was their medical cannabis, but the guy passed out. He was having severe pain, you know, situation. So at that point, you know, you have to realize these are very serious and there's a lot of responsibility that comes with onsite consumption. So a lot of people have come up with waivers, you know, just to protect them and the patients themselves from, you know, I've literally had people who have had, you know, are multiple personality people with schizophrenia literally stop taking their medication, react, smash a bong, and literally went after to stab a guy because she thought it was her rapist.

2:11:26Etienne FontanSounds like alcohol. But this is mental illness, you know?

2:11:30BubblemanNo, I know, but mentally ill people go and drink alcohol too and do the same thing.

2:11:34Etienne FontanNo, no, they do too, but she was sitting in the lounge from when we opened and smoking cannabis. And so, I mean, we did not see or smell anything on her. And another time we had another guy go 51-50, yell, freak out, and then he literally went right out front and sat in the lotus position until the psychiatrist came.

2:11:51BubblemanYou know, so yeah, I got lucky because I ran one for three years and I never had anyone pass out or lose their shit or do anything. But we weren't dabbing. We were just vaporizing.

2:12:04Etienne FontanAnd it wasn't it wasn't really around early on. So it was really just vaporizing and smoking the joints. But Even a volcano can be strong to somebody who has a low tolerance and gives them a level of high that they're not used to. And it can go from zero to uncomfortable or, as stated, they can get too high and pass out. I definitely knocked out hundreds. You got the wah-wahs, right?

2:12:28Etienne Fontanyeah i've definitely knocked out hundreds with bubble over the years early days more so but i never had that problem at uh at the store so that's a very good point at the lounge you definitely have because you have to realize when you call 9-1-1 at least in america if paramedics or or fire departments see a crime ongoing they have to turn it over to the police so the thing that we always had to do was we had to shut down the bar we'd let everybody know out front hey The fire department and the paramedics are going to be here within two minutes.

2:12:59Etienne FontanSo if you need to leave, leave. Please put out whatever you're smoking. And then literally, as I'm saying that, you would hear the sirens getting closer and closer. And we would have to cover the displays. We would have to cover anything that was, you know, illegal in their eyes. And then they would come in, do their assessment, take the person, and then usually within five minutes, move them on and then back to, you know, reality.

2:13:25BubblemanBut the firemen are cool in Canada, like they're the last ones to rat you out. That's why they're allowed to put stickers on their cars that tell them, that tell you they're a firefighter. I asked my brother-in-law, who's a cop, I said, why don't you You guys have like stickers that say you're a cop. And he's like, dude, they would vandalize our cars so bad. I said, well, isn't that an interesting social sort of, you know?

2:13:49SpeakerPerception?

2:13:50BubblemanLike, yeah, the difference between firemen and policemen. Like, fuck, if a fireman came, you're fine.

2:13:56Etienne FontanWell, the war on drugs here has permeated so bad they want everybody to ride on each other. Remember, there was to turn in your parents, right? And so, you know, here are, you know, the fire department and them, if they go into a place and see a crime, they have to turn it over. And that's fucked up situation. I wish we were more like Canada in that resolve and respectful of our people.

2:14:16Etienne FontanBut our war on drugs is so draconian that we have permeated every part of our lifestyles to, you know, get people to surrender or turn people over. It's that pathetic.

2:14:28BubblemanAnd rough, dude. That's rough. Well, I'm glad to say that it's getting better. Because I definitely it has to be it's definitely gotten better here. In Canada, I don't hear too many people going to prison for cannabis, which is very good. It'd be nice to hear that for the US as well. Because that's I can't imagine what the numbers still are for the US like what, like people are still getting busted in places for joints and little bags of weed and

2:14:57SpeakerYeah, yeah, they are. They are. It depends really, it really depends where you are. And again, that whole divide that exists in the US around hemp derived versus, you know, like some states don't have any regulation on the hemp at all. But yeah, if you're caught with high THC, you know, type one cannabis, you're fucked. But you can go and get an HHC pen on the way to going to jail at the gas station, yeah?

2:15:29Etienne FontanAll right, you asked. So according to FBI crime data, there were at least 204,036 marijuana-related arrests in 2024. Early FBI show 217,000 for 223. So about 225,000 people are still getting fucked with here in the States on average.

2:15:52BubblemanAnd is that like, what was it during the peak of the war on drugs?

2:15:56Etienne FontanOh, 108, all closer to a million, you know. Okay. Holy shit. It's gotten better. I mean, we have knocked it down. DARE is gone, but we still have lots of work to do, people. That's what it shows us, right? 200,000 people.

2:16:10SpeakerYeah, and certain jurisdictions, you know, the DAs will not, like in Los Angeles, you're not going to get pursued unless you're doing really, really large scale stuff where now the feds get involved because of taxes, like you're skirting taxes and shit like that. I mean, if you draw unnecessary attention to you like that, Then yeah, you can certainly get in a lot of trouble. But you're just talking about the guy who's like walking down the street smoking a joint.

2:16:45SpeakerIs that guy going to get arrested? It really depends on what zip code.

2:16:49BubblemanWell, apparently 92% of the arrests in 2024 were simple possession. Yeah. 92% of the 204,000, which is good. At least it's not like all growers.

2:17:03Etienne FontanIt's still an unacceptable number. 100% unacceptable.

2:17:06SpeakerIt'd be interesting to understand what fraction of that were traffic stops, you know? Yeah. Versus just like some dude walking down the street with a bag of weed in his pocket, you know? Or how many go to jail for it. Yeah, you probably don't go to jail. I don't know. Maybe you do.

2:17:26Etienne FontanNo, I see people. I watch live PD all the time, which is they basically they run this live PD, which is cops, 50 different cops all around the United States. And they literally are filming them. And I watch it all the time because I love to study about what they're doing, how they pull people over. And they're pulling people and smelling pot. South Carolina, North Carolina, all these places where there's absolutely no laws.

2:17:47Etienne FontanAnd yep, they're taking them to jail just on the simple possession charges because, you know, there is absolutely no medical defense in any way, shape or form. So, I mean, I wish people in these southern states and Kansas and others would wake the fuck up and really get involved. But apparently they like getting arrested. They enjoy getting fucked with. They like it so much that they want to keep it going on a daily basis.

2:18:10Etienne FontanSo, You know, you're tolerating it. So stop tolerating it and do something about it.

2:18:18BubblemanYeah, well, you know, the things you tolerate define how people treat you.

2:18:26SpeakerYeah.

2:18:27Etienne FontanThat's why they're treated like slaves and they're treated like second class citizens. And currently there's actually the Supreme Court this week finally agreed to hear the case regarding Second Amendment and cannabis. So that's a whole other discussion. But that will happen the first week of March. March 2nd has been scheduled for the Supreme Court. So and I would anticipate them to overturn it. I think that the Second Amendment will win its right overall.

2:18:53Etienne FontanBut, you know, dispensary owners like myself, we can't own guns. That adds another five to ten years to your reality. So don't fuck around and find out, people. Talk to your lawyers. Don't be dumb.

2:19:06SpeakerWe don't have that many guns up here. What's the basis of that case, ATN? So someone got in trouble for smoking cannabis and they also were a gun owner?

2:19:17Etienne FontanThere's multiple cases. I believe it was a positive analysis. Another one had to do with the application process, right? Because the problem in the United States is the application, right? You have to state that you're not using anything illegal, Schedule I drug, et cetera, et cetera. That will change a few years from now when Schedule 3 finally arrives. But until that time, you know, yeah, like I said, there's extra draconian laws regarding cannabis and gun ownership.

2:19:48Etienne FontanAnd it's actually three to four different cases, but this particular case is one that I can see the federalism. I'm not sure which particular case. So give me a second, Doc, and I'll look that up and I'll get right back to you.

2:20:04BubblemanThe fact that there's multiple is scary for sure. But yeah, what I was saying is we don't, I don't think we're too worried about guns up in Canada. I don't know if we're allowed to have them. We're not allowed to have them. I just don't have them.

2:20:19SpeakerYeah, neither do I. I was just wondering, I think there was a case in Pennsylvania where Where the cop pulled a guy over. I don't know if it was a guy or a girl. I assume it was a guy, a white guy, right? And yeah, he had weed and he had a gun on him. And I think that that might be one of the cases. That's why I was asking about it.

2:20:40SpeakerBut I think the interesting aspect about that is I believe that in case precedence now, and tell me if I'm wrong, ATN, The smell of fresh cannabis is no longer a, gives the cop the right to search the car. It used to be like if the cop smelled in certain states. Yes. In certain states. Okay. Okay. So that's not across the country.

2:21:10Etienne FontanRight. In states where it's legal, like in Canada and Pennsylvania, they've already stopped training the dogs to even stop smelling cannabis. You know what I'm saying? Right. They've gone that far. You've got to go federal to get it in all the states.

2:21:22SpeakerCorrect. Right. Now, smelling smoked cannabis would indicate that they were actually consuming in the vehicle, and that changes things, right?

2:21:32Etienne FontanYeah, that's consumption, and then that becomes a DUI, right? That becomes a DUI, right, which totally fucks that person's life up for a long time. The case before the Supreme Court is United States v. Hermione. It challenges a constitutional to the federal statute 18 U.S.C. 922G3 that prohibits gun possession from anyone who is an unlawful user or addicted to any controlled substance, including marijuana. The defendant is Ali Daniel Hermani, a man from Texas.

2:22:02Etienne FontanDuring an FBI search of his home, agents found a handgun along with marijuana and a small amount of cocaine. Hermani admitted to using both marijuana and cocaine and was indicted for violating the federal gun possession ban. In the lower courts, the magistrate judge dismissed the indictment, finding the federal ban conflicted with the Supreme Court's Second Amendment framework from the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association versus Bruin in 2022.

2:22:30Etienne FontanU.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed that dismissal, agreeing that applying the ban to Hermione's situation might be constitutional under current Second Amendment standards. The Supreme Court granted review on this question. Which broadly bars people from using illegal drugs, including marijuana, from possessing firearms, which violates the Second Amendment. The court is expected to hear arguments March 2026 and issue a decision subsequently. The outcome will determine whether the federal prohibition on gun ownership All of this marijuana use is constitutional under the Second Amendment, especially in light of recent Supreme Court rulings that emphasize historical traditions in evaluating firearm regulations.

2:23:12Etienne FontanAnd so that's why from the previous thing, I have a feeling it will be overturned.

2:23:21BubblemanSorry to be so long-winded there. Bubble Man, you're muted. Yes, I know. I was speaking with my wife off camera about some things. Hi, Mrs. Bubble Man. Hi, Mrs. Bubble Man from ATN.

2:23:34SpeakerHello. We love you. We call her Bubble Mom, don't we? Bubble Mom.

2:23:40BubblemanYeah, we call her Bubble Mama. Well, there's Bubble Mon, and then there's Bubble Mom. Yes, that's true. And often when I try to write Bubble Mon, it auto-corrects to Bubble Mom. So there it is in a nutshell. What's... What's everyone puffing on? This would give you guys a good opportunity to showcase, you know, something that you're quite stoked on at the store right now. Something from the collective, from the craft.

2:24:10SpeakerDr. Martin with the baller jar. I had a little rip of the Brindle's Farms, their new Black Maple 22.

2:24:17BubblemanOkay, I think you smoked that with me before.

2:24:20SpeakerYeah, yeah, yeah.

2:24:22BubblemanDoes it taste like maple?

2:24:24SpeakerIt's a little sweeter kind of coming through on this one, but not super maple-y, no. That's a hard one to pull through, I think.

2:24:35BubblemanI'm going to do this garlic, chay, watermelon, gas thing. This just smells like straight GMO.

2:24:44SpeakerOh, nice.

2:24:45Etienne FontanI went and visited Fletch up on his spot up on Hollywood. Hell yeah! And oh, he's got a beautiful spot, man. 25 acres. He literally bought it from the DEA agent on the island, which is the first fucking helicopter pilot on the fucking island, dude. It's fucking chef's kiss good that he got it from him. But yeah, yeah. Hung out with him, smoked some great weed and hung out.

2:25:11Etienne FontanAnd yeah, it was a wonderful time. Love you, Fletch. Miss you, bud. Hope you're having a great new year. His mom, his birthday was on December 31st. So happy birthday as well, Fletch. And his mom and sister were visiting. So that was cool.

2:25:23SpeakerOh, very cool. Fletch, I hear that name reminds me of that show with, movie with Chevy Chase. Chevy Chase, yeah.

2:25:30BubblemanFletch, Fletcher or Fletch? It was Fletch. Yeah. Fletch. That was a good one. Great Fletch.

2:25:36SpeakerYeah. The new papaya from Sauce Frozen Labs. Oh, I knew someone was going to have the sauce. Yeah.

2:25:45BubblemanYeah.

2:25:45SpeakerHow's that tasting? I think this one might be my favorite one yet. Like, Wilson was nice, but this one's got a little bit more punch to it too. I like this one. Nice. I was always smoking something good over there. What do you got, Matt? I got the Lemon Royale from Slurm. I love this one. It's such an interesting cross. It's great. A lot of lemon in it.

2:26:07SpeakerI was talking to a customer about that Lemon Royale, and they were saying that it's their nighttime one for them. It just really just relaxes them and puts them out. And it's really high in CBG, which is pretty cool. Okay. Okay. So I find for me before bed, there's like certain ones that are just heavy and then certain ones I'm like, just calms my brain. I'm like, that's enough to get me to bed.

2:26:29SpeakerI don't need something to couch lock me. That's what I found with that Lemon Royale too. Okay. Yeah, I guess it'd be less mercy on that one, you would think. So less of the fog probably. I enjoy it. I'm the odd man out. I don't have any rosin on me, but I will point out this one, which from Salt Spring. I don't know if you can see it.

2:26:49BubblemanYou got to keep it in front of you, like in front of your body. Yeah, exactly. Because you got your blur screen on. Yeah, it's perfect.

2:26:57SpeakerI would love to see this actually squished, but I'm super impressed by this flower and more so how tight their supply chain is from getting from packaging to shelf. They're really impressive and just really like this entry. Yeah, Matt, that's all you're doing, Matt. You've done a lot of work with Matt John. Yeah, what the hell happened? Dennis, we've got, we just launched, thank you for the cue, we just launched little vape pens, live resin, disposable, one-ground vape So, you know, we're working, you know, we're working with Josh and a company called Common Roots Extracts, which is a great guy named Praveen.

2:27:36SpeakerAnd we're working with them on on, you know, some options. But the first entry into market is going to be is these disposable one gram hippie headbanger pens, because frankly, they're the thing that will sell before we can we can move into jars. But you believe me, everyone, we are working Thank you. Thank you.

2:28:15SpeakerI am a big fan right now of the latest drop of Cool Grapes that we got from Island Genetics. I mean, the first one was a very minty and menthol-y and it was beautifully grown, but wasn't my exact favorite flavor profile. But this one's a lot more gassy and it's just with the, there's just something about that bud just from the time you crack the bag, busting it up, it's cured perfectly, smokes great right to the last puff.

2:28:39SpeakerLike it just, it makes it that nice, enjoyable experience for cannabis rather than just trying to jump to die. And how are you puffing it on a, in a joint? Joint for me, I honestly, until I found rosin in the puff goes, I thought I would never give up joints. I tried vaporizers every now and then, but I just, I've always just loved the joint. There's something very ritual and calming about just rolling the joint, smoking the joint for me.

2:29:03BubblemanAnd a joint for you, is it like, are you rolling half grammars or do you get like two, like...

2:29:08SpeakerWhat I'm finding now is like I've gone from smoking five, six times throughout the day. I'm going to roll up a nice one and a half to two grammer and just kind of sit there and really relax while I'm cooking, standing at the stove, just something to sip on it. Yeah, more of like a cigar experience.

2:29:23BubblemanAnd are you a filter guy? Are you puffing that raw?

2:29:26SpeakerI just learned to be, man. It took me a long time. I grew up in Mission. So like for us always growing up, it was always, I don't know.

2:29:32BubblemanIt's just like- Dude, I haven't smoked joints in 26 years. So I don't use filters at all. I'm just sucking on that thing raw. People are like, what the fuck? I had to completely learn how to re-roll in the last year, man. All right. Well, I appreciate it. I'd love for the rest of you guys to answer the same kind of questions. I want to know what the flower, but I also want to know kind of how you smoke it.

2:29:49BubblemanAnd if it's in a joint, like describe your joint size, filter, et cetera.

2:29:54SpeakerNo, no. Yeah, I've been, I've been, I've been dipping back into some of Amani's gastropop, especially with that new 14 gram drop. That one's definitely been really solid. And also that, that hella jella that, that Dennis Scholl held up there from Magi, that's, that's been a really nice sativa, real just candy kind of bit of a gassy profile. For me, when I get lazy, you know, sometimes I'll just jam a big bong hoot, but mostly, yeah, I just like to roll a nice big joint, you know, nice big, you know, a couple of grams, big fat filter on there.

2:30:26SpeakerAlways got to have enough flour in there so you overpower the paper and get that nice flavorful experience. But again, it's just sitting down by a little ritual, you know, grinding, rolling. Winding down the end of the day and just having a little puff and just chilling.

2:30:40BubblemanDude, I'm telling you, it's so different. I can tell you for someone that hasn't smoked it in 26 years and then just to have smoked a few recently, the whole like, I don't know, dabs, no matter what, aren't the same and like, oh, let's go over there and do this. I say, I can bring it all I do. But that puffing of a joint and going somewhere and being like, let's just go stand over here and look out at this view and sit on this bench or, you know, like it's just, it is a real, It is a real thing.

2:31:07BubblemanSo you're still puffing nugs right in the fucking, right in the bong.

2:31:13SpeakerYeah, yeah, yeah, every once in a while for sure. That's what's up. Yeah, yeah. A lot of the friends that I grew up with that I'm the closest with still are the ones that like every night everybody went into their different directions in the world, but 6 p.m. we're meeting up, we're going to cruise around, there's three guys that's going to be three doobies and we would just drive and then that's it, you come back and like even with a couple of them that don't really burn anymore, it's just we were together for those formative years day in, day out.

2:31:38SpeakerYeah. Like it's just something very social and connected about passing that joint around. Yeah.

2:31:43BubblemanI agree. I think the only part I won't join in on is the passing of it around. I think I like the independent. I think I'm at an age where I'll never forget this Rasta guy telling me years ago in Jamaica, he's like, I don't share my woman, my cup, or my spliff. And I was like, damn, I can get behind that. I think those are personal things.

2:32:04BubblemanYou know, and, and the Wook flu is real, you know, it's like, it's real, bro. Like just sharing, even a Puffco is one thing, but a Puffco will never be as wet and nasty as the end of a fucking Thank you so much for joining us.

2:32:34BubblemanMatt, wanna go?

2:32:36SpeakerOkay, well, I really like, there's two flowers that I particularly are really enjoying right now. I really, well, three, three in fairness. The Timmy's OG Shark from Salt Spring Magic is like a staple in our shop and a staple in my stash. Divine Intervention, which is a Congo cross from Sweetgrass is super awesome. And then also their newest drop, which is the Triangle Queen. That Triangle Queen is is a pretty unique flower.

2:33:05SpeakerIt's got a really nice flavor on it. It's kind of got like a orange cream to it, which is kind of Aaron Wiggins, CFO, CFO, CFO, CFO, CFO

2:33:25SpeakerYou know, I like to sit on my patio with my rocking chair and my front porch and I'd smoke a nice fat joint. And, you know, sometimes I'll have a nice beverage with it and it's just a nice way to unwind after a busy day at the shop. So it's actually one of my favorite things to do and I look forward to it. It's just a bit cold, you know.

2:33:44SpeakerI don't like sitting outside in the cold right now.

2:33:47BubblemanYeah, I feel that. I think cannabis is forever to be the outside. It's like you got to go outside and do that. Like I, I can't even imagine like I'll take dabs in my house all day long, but I just could not imagine just like lighting up a joint in my house.

2:34:02SpeakerAnd yeah, I join at the beach like, you know, I'm very blessed. I live near the beach. So that's one of my favorite things is to go down to the beach with my dog and throw a frisbee for him and smoke a fat joint. And especially if I can go with my wife, it's It's like, I don't know, there's so much conversation that happens when passing a joint, even, you know, between two or three people and there's so much sharing and with your partner especially, it's quite a powerful thing I find.

2:34:30SpeakerIt gets you on the same page and you share that moment and I don't know, I like that moment that cannabis gives us. It's really cool. I think another big change for me from being younger is now I don't really know most of the time I don't really want an ounce of one particular cultivar like I'd rather have like if I'm going anywhere like I take my bag with me there's going to be five or six different bags in there depending on what the vibe is what we're doing like you know what the weather is even sometimes like if it's dreary and gritty like I want something that's a little bit more heavy right versus something that's going to open up my eyes and give me a nice head eye.

2:35:06SpeakerYeah, or you make a little fruit salad, do your own little combo, kind of, you know, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, you know, and just kind of roll a joint that's going to match the experience that you're looking for, right? Yeah, I love blending back in the day. That was part of the fun of mixologist. Yeah. What are you ripping there, D?

2:35:25SpeakerI know you smoked that whole bag of the Triangle Queen. I didn't get to smoke any. I swear I lost it. I lost it. I'm sure the wife hoovered it up. I'm positive because it's gone. I can't find it. It's good weed, man. It's good weed. It was good. It was definitely good. I love the turn. You slipped up. You said it was good. You said you lost it.

2:35:45SpeakerI took a small nug and I tasted it. It was good. It was definitely good. I know Matt's on here too. So like Matt, I did smoke it. It's good. Hey, man, we recorded it.

2:35:52BubblemanWe got you. Dr. Mark's got that Best Friend Farms.

2:35:55SpeakerYeah, so this, I'm still holding on to a couple nugs of this. This is the gas mask from Brian, our good friend Brian over at Best Friend Farms. But I also wanted to point out my friend, actually a mutual friend of Colin and mine's, Adam at Mendocino Grasslands. This is the Mui Especial. Mui. Wow. Anything that's Mui is very good. So it's really, really nice. Very flavorful.

2:36:26SpeakerLet's just pop one of these nugs up there.

2:36:28Etienne FontanYeah, I've been popping on Maui. I was able to go to Maui Grow and they have super silver haze. But it's picked a little bit early. So it's indoor. It's not as good. But this Royal Hawaiian, absolutely wonderful. I tend to... You're a professional.

2:37:03Etienne FontanIt's a serious joint. It's not for, you know, for notices. But then the rest of the day I go into dabbing. So, you know, it's hard for me to smoke after I've started dabbing, right? I just don't get the same high, the same elevation. But to me, I don't drink coffee. So a joint in the morning is my coffee, which really helps me wake up and acclimate to the world.

2:37:26SpeakerSame. Awesome. And we have our friend Hawaii Sustainable in the chat. I don't know if you're close to him, ATN, but I know Hawaii's got, you know, fire. Oh, yeah. Hook ATN up.

2:37:41Etienne FontanWait, hold on. I've got the stuff from the traditional market, but that's in the freezer too. So, I mean, yeah, I've been gifted and, you know, there's all kinds of, there's some great growers on the islands, right? Because you can grow your own here. So, you know, I, you know, I bring seeds for my friends, right? You know, there's no better present than beans to a grower, right?

2:38:00Etienne FontanSo, you know, I'm all in equal opportunity sharing beans because then I come back and I'm like, here's what I did. This is what I come up with. So, You know, always take seeds with you, ladies and gentlemen, and gift them to everybody that is a grower so that, you know, be the Johnny hempy seed and spread them all around, spread them thick, you know, give them to your mom, dad, friends, brothers, everywhere.

2:38:23Etienne FontanEverybody could use some seeds to grow. So overgrow everywhere.

2:38:26BubblemanHere's proof for Dredd, who's in the chat, who doesn't believe me. He doesn't believe me. I think that's AI, isn't it? There you go, dude.

2:38:35Etienne FontanMarcus admitted to us yesterday at a science meeting, and yesterday in our science meeting, he came in and admitted that he smoked joints, and we swore that, you know, the earth turned, there was something fucking crazy, that, you know, that he smoked a joint in 2026. Wow, the world has definitely frozen over a little bit somewhere.

2:38:53SpeakerHey, now, remember what our dearly departed skunk man Sam told us many episodes ago on Hash Church, right? I think what he, Marcus, correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember the story that what David was saying was that there are no native land races anywhere. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time.

2:39:34Etienne FontanSomething about the equator that really makes a heavy punch to that cannabis. So it's, yes, there are a lot of Northern California genetics that did make it here, but definitely some from Thailand, Vietnam, and the guys brought stuff, you know, from Asia, you know, during the wars, because remember, this is a major stop here, right? This is the middle of the Pacific. Right. So going east and west, you know, a lot of different things.

2:39:58Etienne FontanI've seen Cambodian here. I've seen, you know, all kinds of Asian land races here too. But the predominant stuff that I do see myself is Northern California or more so Dutch genetics.

2:40:13SpeakerSo even the famous Maui Waui, right? Didn't that originally?

2:40:16Etienne FontanWell, the Maui Grown has what they call a pre-72, which is the closest lineage they could find to the true Maui Waui, which was, I believe, gifted from somebody on the island who had been maintaining it. So they do have one varietal, but again, they have to produce it themselves. And here, a gram of rosin is $94. Wow. And that's with a veteran's discount.

2:40:43BubblemanJesus Christ.

2:40:45Etienne FontanRight? Because they have to produce it all themselves in small batches. And they have to do everything from the packaging on, which I still think is way too overpriced.

2:40:54SpeakerJesus.

2:40:55BubblemanWow. That's terrible. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad that it's available. I'm glad that it's available. I'm just bummed that it's so expensive that it won't be. You know what? I would just with my buddies, we'd be like, all right, let's each put 20 bucks in. We'll each get 20% of what we, you know, 0.2 of a gram of rosin. I would have been that guy.

2:41:17SpeakerHey, ATN, did you experience or see anything about the Budalero launch for that haze that they launched into the market?

2:41:30Etienne FontanNo, it's probably a small batch, so it's going... Super small batch. Yeah, things like that. Yeah, I mean, I wish, but I do not carry their stuff.

2:41:40BubblemanIt's still pretty much... Dude, we could make that happen, dude. They're good guys. I'd love to make it happen. They came on Hash Church. Yeah, they did. Would you want the episode with us?

2:41:48Etienne FontanYeah, I was. Yeah. I'm happy to introduce, you know, I'd love to get the email because, you know, I love the exotics and the uniques because I was able to select from them, you know, when the Swazi would come through and stuff like that. That's one of my favorite genetics. Haze would come through. I'd literally buy an ounce of the pound when it would come through personally.

2:42:07Etienne FontanThat's how... Thank you for joining us.

2:42:29SpeakerWe've actually discussed trying to do something similar and bring something like a small batch like that to the market as well with certain entities up here in the Canada space. But yeah, that's for us, I think a bit of a holy grail to be able to Realiztically bring something like that to the market and present that option or alternative to everything that's out there. Yeah, I hate that.

2:42:55Etienne FontanEverybody should be doing that. You should all find unique genetics for your clubs. And that's what made us so unique before 2018 is because we were buying unique small batch cultivars from, you know, small batch farmers. And all of my patient base responded to that. And of course, unfortunately, post-64, We're all dealing in the, you know, overproduced, you know, world. So the quality is definitely taking a nosedive.

2:43:20Etienne FontanSo I personally, I miss it. And I hate that it's become so commercialized. But there are people like Baudillero who are trying to really step up the quality. So it isn't about quantity. It's all about quality. And That's something I hope we see more of, because I think you'll see more of it in Canada than necessarily sometimes that we're seeing here in California like we used to, unfortunately.

2:43:47Etienne FontanBut that's the laws and how they change. I wish I could go on an app and order my cannabis and have it mailed to my door. I'm absolutely envious of that. And the veterans program that you have as well, is you know world class and um has really shown the world on how to take care of medical patients now i know it isn't a perfect system but canada's system is still the system that i see as the standard in the world uh that has continued to provide you know as you know we've watched marcus and other lps go through you know the growing pains um what y'all have been able to do i think is is still the envy of the rest of the world In my opinion.

2:44:34BubblemanWell, lots more work to do. That is for sure. It is by no means done. There's lots of work to be done in regards to building this industry, especially here in Canada. It's a It's a tough one for sure. They've made it very difficult to just have just if you had nothing to do with cannabis at all, but you just wanted to learn how to execute all these things like it is difficult figuring out the taxes and the Thank you so much for joining us.

2:45:29BubblemanAnd just go, all right.

2:45:30Etienne FontanIt creates ingenuities, right? It creates you to see things that other people have, right? What I'm using right here, right? This is a thing called a sploofy. I found it on Amazon. But what's the great thing about it is it's a recyclable carbon filter that then goes into this. You blow on. And you blow through it and it absorbs all the smoke. So if you're traveling, you know, I found this on it so you can get the filters and all that.

2:45:57Etienne FontanA lot of them were just were plastic and you just throw them away. But now having, you know, an alternative that is recyclable, you know what I'm saying, is definitely worth it. So, you know, for traveling and going into hotels and, you know, wherever. I, um, yeah, I try these all the time and this one is by far one of the, probably the best and has lasted the longest.

2:46:20Etienne FontanI can get almost three weeks worth of filter use out of this. That's serious shit. You know what I'm saying? It's a fatty.

2:46:27BubblemanIt's a big fat one. It's the biggest, fattest one I've seen.

2:46:30Etienne FontanAnd it's also worth it because these, you know, these come in, um, um, You know, in packs for recycling. So, I mean, it's absolutely well worth, you know, the investment in, you know, taking care of yourself.

2:46:43SpeakerWhat do those cost, ATN? They're like 20 bucks. Oh, okay. So cheap.

2:46:48Etienne FontanYeah, they're cheap. And, you know, there's things that you can get in head shops currently, but this is by far, again, I found it on Amazon. So I've tried them all. And right now this one has really stepped up.

2:47:01SpeakerWhat's the brand again? I'm sorry to ask.

2:47:03Etienne FontanLuffy. Luffy. Bluefie, can you show that to me? Bluefie, S-P-L-O-O-F-Y, Bluefie.

2:47:13SpeakerOld school, pad and pencil.

2:47:15Etienne FontanThere you go. Because back in the day, when I used to travel, I would take a, you know, I would take dryer sheets with me and stuff them into a toilet roll. And, you know, I remember being in Paris and using stuff like that. Except in Paris, you can't get, they didn't have the ball, the sheets as much as they have these little balls in a net form.

2:47:38Etienne FontanSo you take two of those and stuff it in and use some toilet tissue. But It worked, you know what I'm saying?

2:47:44BubblemanDamn, here I am just being a straight heat score and just exhaling that shit wherever I am. It's like, oh, I probably should. I like your style, Etienne. You're smart.

2:47:57Etienne FontanWell, you know, I've had to travel around the world and I have to deal in situations where there's, you know, world security involved. So, you know, you want to be as discreet as you possibly can. So this is one way that I have found to, you know, do that is to, you know, appear invisible, right? You know, do not do things in public, you know, hide what you're doing, but also hide in plain sight, you know.

2:48:22Etienne FontanMm hmm. You know, I will, if I'm traveling and I have cannabis, I will just use one of those fake cigarettes. You know what I'm saying? I've used those even in Disney World over in the cigarette, in the smoking section. You can, you know, you'd be amazed where, you know, people just see you holding something that looks like a cigarette. That's just how it goes. And that's just how it's going to be.

2:48:43Etienne FontanSo, you know.

2:48:45BubblemanThat's why you have to hold a joint and melt their brains.

2:48:49Etienne FontanYep. And hold it like a cigarette. Don't hold it like a joint so that people, unless you're in New York where it's legal, you know what I'm saying? You know, learn to hold it and smoke it just like it's a cigarette, you know, and normalize what they see. And if you do that, you're literally doing it in plain sight and nobody has a clue. But, you know, I carry stuff like Osium and stuff like that to, you know, make the place smell better, you know, when I leave and stuff like that.

2:49:15Etienne FontanOr if you're going into a place like an Airbnb, always get some bacon. You know, there's nothing like cooking bacon when you leave to cover the smell of all of your cannabis, ladies and gentlemen. You know what I'm saying? So if you're a vegetarian, find something else. But, you know, bacon will cover the scent of everything.

2:49:33BubblemanJust saying.

2:49:37BubblemanBacon will cover the scent of everything.

2:49:41SpeakerAnd bacon fat is a great vehicle for infusion. If you like that, you know.

2:49:46BubblemanWell, I'm Muslim, so I can't, I can't fuck with that shit. Actually, I'm vegetarian, so I can't fuck with that shit. Hooved animals, right? Actually, I'm Jewish, and I can't, no, I'm just joking. I don't even know what I am. I'm a human being, and I don't eat bacon.

2:50:09SpeakerYeah, no, that's healthy for you.

2:50:13BubblemanIt might be, I don't know. I don't pretend to know what I'm doing is any better than what anyone else is doing, but I'm just, we all got to do what we got to do. And hopefully we can do it in a way that doesn't make us want to kill each other. That would be the ideal thing. I think that's kind of the mission of cannabis to pause people and calm them down and slow them down because I don't know.

2:50:37BubblemanI just feel like it can reduce reaction time.

2:50:41SpeakerThere's got to be, I mean, with the younger generation wanting to drink less alcohol and, and, you know, and like a lot of them are vaping and stuff and trying cannabis and stuff. So, I mean, it's, it's, it's a win-win for everybody. I guarantee you, if you look at the stats in certain cities that legalize cannabis, there's less work and costs for policing and certain crimes in certain categories and areas that they have to deal with that, you know, that, that have been affected by consumption use, you know?

2:51:09Etienne FontanWell, it forces them to deal with real crime, right? We were the low-hanging fruit that they kind of, you know, picked on us, right? Because we are who we are, right? We're not the biggest fighters, right? However, you know, the change in situations as well as the normalization there in Canada and here in the United States is definitely... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2:51:55Etienne FontanOh, I don't like hangovers. Hangovers suck, right? My first hangover sucked. Did anybody enjoy their first hangover? No? No? You didn't?

2:52:05BubblemanStill waiting to have it.

2:52:07Etienne FontanYeah, it's not worth it, man. Trust me. It's why we all went to cannabis, right? It's because we realized, oh, shit, we don't get this hangover. And that, I think, has really hit the younger generations because the only alternative was alcohol, right? And that's the alternative that came with that was the hangover, right? That's just the reality, right? So you learn to eat and all these things to ingest alcohol, right?

2:52:31Etienne FontanWe used to go out and, you know, eat food so that we wouldn't get too fucked up. You know what I'm saying? So you even had to figure your alcohol consumption the same way that we look at our cannabis consumption. But many of us did it with alcohol before we did it with cannabis because it was societally acceptable, right?

2:52:45SpeakerNot only that, but for me personally, the first thing that I would grab when I was hungover was cannabis. And making me feel better right off the bat.

2:52:54Etienne FontanTotal hangover cure, THC, right?

2:52:57SpeakerYeah, yeah, exactly.

2:52:59Etienne FontanThat's just you.

2:53:00SpeakerATN, I lean back to show you that I'm wearing my Jazz Fest shirt to remind you of your hometown, right? I could tell you that I've had like countless hours of, it's hard to tell whether you're drunk or you're hungover because in New Orleans it all blends into one. You get three hours of sleep in five days and you go home broke. And you've had the most incredible time.

2:53:27SpeakerUsually just because alcohol, I mean, all the clubs you go to, everybody's drinking. And you go to Bourbon Street, it's all about drinking, right? There's open containers. There's just this alcohol culture that exists in New Orleans, right? And it has for years. Dude, it's everywhere.

2:53:45Etienne FontanIf you could reach the bar, it's like Europe. If you could reach the bar, they'll serve you.

2:53:51SpeakerHas that shifted in any ways now in New Orleans? Because, I mean, there's no legal cannabis in... Well, you know, there is medical in Louisiana, but it's very limited.

2:54:02Etienne FontanIt's only sold in pharmacies. And, I mean, there's still tons of head shops up and down. I mean, I've actually bought my cigarettes going up and down Bourbon Street at the At the stores. When I was a child, one of my earlier memories was when, you know, Crescent City PD came through Bourbon Street and went through and smashed all the ceramic bongs. Back in the 70s, they had all, you know, the castles, the wizards and all that stuff was all there.

2:54:27Etienne FontanAnd oh, yeah, they actually made a big show of force and came through and went out in the middle of the street and smashed them. We don't want this shit here. And then, you know, quietly, they just slowly brought them back on the You know, as they've always have because they were always selling because, you know, it's a party town, you know, people come from all over the world to New Orleans because, you know, the food, the atmosphere and fun.

2:54:48Etienne FontanI mean, Mardi Gras and own the world round million people plus come to there.

2:54:53SpeakerYou know, if you're out at the clubs, like if you're out on Frenchman's or out by Tipitina's, there's people smoking weed all around, all around the clubs. It's yeah, it's.

2:55:04Etienne FontanAnd LSD and mushrooms. I mean, yeah, I scored LSD in 89. And then as I'm sitting there on Bourbon Street and literally watched Neil Young walk right across the street and he walked right in and did a set at this bar and we just followed him right in and sat down and just kind of frizzled while watching him play an acoustic set randomly on Bourbon Street. We never know what's going to happen there, man.

2:55:29BubblemanEpic. Dude, come on. Neil, of all people?

2:55:33SpeakerIt's a really cool city. Yeah, it's Canadian, right? You should go there once, you know, like all the folks in chat. If you've never been to New Orleans and you have an opportunity to go, the music is great, the food is great, the people's great. It's a fucking trip. Go to New Orleans, man. It's a good place to go. I don't know.

2:55:54BubblemanWe'll check it out. I'm not against giving it a shot. I did have a couple questions for these guys because we're in our last hour now. If we go the whole time, I wanted to kind of bring it back a little bit to just the whole conversation. But now I got to find where I, oh, right.

2:56:13SpeakerIt's over here.

2:56:15BubblemanWell, I guess this was one that each of you guys could answer or one of you, it doesn't matter, but I kind of figure I know the answer. We've skirted around it the whole conversation today, but why does bringing better flower to market matter to you personally? So each of you, starting with Mark, I'd love to hear your perspective on that. Why bringing better flower to market matters to you personally?

2:56:43SpeakerYeah, I guess for me personally, I mean, the plant has just been around for so many years. It's helped me, my family, so many friends in so many ways. I just see so many opportunities for people to have a better experience with cannabis and turn that into, you know, their lifestyle and just helping them in so many different ways. So When I get to educate a customer a little bit and, you know, introduce them to new products and new brands and better experiences, I mean, that's just a win-win for me.

2:57:21SpeakerAnd I just, that's what really makes me happy. Being in the retail industry for over 30 years, the customer service, the health and beauty side, I mean, that's what it was all about. I mean, I was in the hair and the beauty industry and it was always, if you don't make that customer look good and feel good, you're not doing your job. I mean, people need to leave with a peace of mind, feeling satisfied that they've come to the right place, that they're buying the right product, and it's going to give them the experience that they're looking for.

2:57:49SpeakerAnd granted, there's a lot of people in this industry, customers that, you know, I look at a lot of Parallels to the alcohol industry. And, and there's a lot of consumers that just don't care and that's fine. But the ones that do I'm, you know, that's, that's where I get my passion and enjoyment is really being able to help them find a better way. Well said. Good answer.

2:58:13SpeakerYeah, absolutely. I think for me, two reasons. One, from a retailer standpoint, it's differentiation. I mean, I think that's self-explanatory. But the other side is as a consumer, I would like to be a lazy consumer. I want to be able to roll out of bed, walk down the street, and have actual selection, real selection, diversity, a time and place for everything. And I think I'm not, I wouldn't consider myself a lazy smoker because, you know, we actively seek out and try to find.

2:58:49SpeakerBut, you know, it would be nice from a consumer standpoint to just be able to walk in somewhere and then see more than just like the narrow lanes that we're given.

2:58:59BubblemanRight, have someone do all that work for you. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

2:59:02SpeakerIt's pretty nice. It's us doing the work right now. Hopefully somebody else will do the work. And, you know, if this approach does take off more and more retailers kind of do that, I think that's a total plus from a consumer standpoint.

2:59:16Etienne FontanAlso, I would recommend adopting another retailer who isn't doing so well and teach them. One of the things that we did originally was we opened our doors to everybody and showed them what we did because we wanted everybody, because it was kind of the Dutch model, right? We wanted to show them what we were doing and how we were doing it. But why we were doing it, right?

2:59:35Etienne FontanAnd you help give them a perspective. And you can also help give them tools. You know, we would show them, this is how we process, this is how we do this. And then we go, oh, and then we advertise and do this. Give them little pointers. You know, you're kind of like adopting, you're being a big brother to them in a sense that, because you also need to So I would recommend that as well is take people under your wing and show them how to do it so that they can go spread their wings elsewhere.

3:00:13Etienne FontanI know everybody wants to teach everybody to stay in their own, you know, to help them in their own thing. But one of the things that we found, you teach somebody to grow, they can go off and grow it themselves. And if you teach somebody how to retail and openly, they'll do the same, you know, and tell them to pay it forward. You'll do this for you.

3:00:27Etienne FontanI'm doing this for you. But it's with the expectation that you have to do this for somebody else in the future and getting that pay it forward. And people will respect that, especially in our world, because you need apprentices. You need people to We created this right out of nothing, right? But there's rules that you've created, so they need to understand them. Otherwise, they're just going to make the same mistakes.

3:00:49Etienne FontanAnd if you can save somebody from making the same mistakes you have, oh, brothers and sisters, let me tell you, it's a wonderful sensation to see the evolution happen from what you started. Nothing more beautiful.

3:01:01SpeakerSo I think that's kind of the approach we've taken. Like we, we, we expect to take some hits, but the intention was to kind of share our experiences so others can kind of, you know, Do it better, you know, learn from our mistakes and then create a better situation. But I was sharing with the guys early, you're, you're, you know, I was kind of saw, especially back in like the early 2000s, like the tightness of the Berkeley retailers, you guys, CB, CG, BP, Berkeley Patients Care, you guys were very tight, always really tight work together.

3:01:38SpeakerIt seems to be like...

3:01:41Etienne FontanWe felt that because we were working together as a city, we found that the city and the police would then engage us as a group as opposed to going individually. And by appearing powerful, this is, again, we're following exactly what the Dutch did, right? The Dutch figured, look, we can all hang separately or they taught us to work together. And if you work together and you're all on the same page.

3:02:01Etienne FontanSo what we would do is we would have a monthly meeting of all the heads of Berkeley. And so we would all get together, CBC, CB, PCC. And then we would discuss because we'd also find that some of the same people who are the problem people were just bouncing around to each one of us. Right. And so we were also able to discuss those situations, how to handle them or give a heads up.

3:02:24Etienne FontanRight. Because, hey, this new person's around and this is that way and the other. So it helps us each understand what we're each dealing with. As well as when situations happen, then the police and the city council came to our meetings to engage with us directly as opposed to trying to chase us down because they knew where we were meeting and how we were meeting and they respected us and how we were handling things.

3:02:47Etienne FontanAnd when you do that, they will respond accordingly. But if you hide and, you know, try to fuck them over and, you know, do all that, they will fuck you up. So by being open and honest and forthright, they will respond accordingly because they want to deal with the real crime. They want to deal with people who are helping real people. They realize, oh, you're doing a good thing and will actually help and support and point people in your direction.

3:03:12Etienne FontanWe had literally the city, the police chief of Berkeley, Inadvertently, we had no idea this, ladies and gentlemen. His mom had cancer and went through chemotherapy. And he set up, he wrote like a 16-page guideline of how the police should handle medical marijuana. How random is that shit? But that's how it touches every person's life. And if we didn't know that or had engaged him, how would we have known that, right?

3:03:36Etienne FontanAnd by doing that, we've changed, he changed our perspective and the city's perspective, right? So you never know what can happen through that engagement and through that honesty. I know we're always taught to hide, But there's nothing better than coming out to your community and your community supporting you. Wow, we don't talk about nothing better, you know, because when the local news came out to do a hit piece on us, they went around to all the neighbors.

3:04:01Etienne FontanNeighborhood was like, fuck off, leave them alone. They ran prostitution and stuff out of the neighborhood. I had people turning tricks in my backyard. Now I've had a normal neighborhood, so leave them alone. So you never know the influence you have and the positivity because we've known, we've seen, you know, there was studies like, oh, being close to dispensaries is bad and evil. And, you know, they forget that, oh, yeah, you relegate us to the hard parts of town.

3:04:26Etienne FontanSo you put us in these demographics and situations, right? We're from the streets, so we've had to exist in the streets. So we go to streetwise situations, right? We created these clubs in street areas because we needed our access and we didn't have our access. And we made our access. And we now have our access, right?

3:04:44SpeakerYeah. It creates that unified voice, which that's what the regulators want to deal with.

3:04:49Etienne FontanAnd they want to deal with you and people who are of that ilk. Yeah.

3:04:57BubblemanThey are. And they shall. And we'll see. Where do you guys think this is heading in the next three to five years in Canada in particular? Where do you guys think this is heading? For Kraft. You know, for the collective, for what you guys, yeah, Gary, I'd love to hear from you. You're on mute, Gary.

3:05:17SpeakerSorry, I got my dog snoring away over here, so I'm trying to mute it in between when I'm not talking. Oh, no worries.

3:05:22BubblemanHe's welcome to snore on Hash Church. He won't be the first or last dog to snore on Hash Church.

3:05:28SpeakerI was going to say from my where I see it going is a little bit to kind of answer the first question you were saying as well too is like where that passion for the flower comes from is like when we opened our store in Parksville in 2020 and like from having grown up in Mission I mean we always had good cannabis like I wouldn't have known to appreciate it maybe when I was that young but there was always good cannabis but it was always going to be that really heavy always the indica stuff so getting a chance to like Come out to Vancouver and getting like cake strains or cheese strains like getting that like holy shit like it just made me fall in love with it all over again like that first puff in grade nine.

3:06:04SpeakerSo when we go to 2020 and we're opening after legalization and I'm like handing somebody I'm like cringing as I'm handing them this jar because I'm like I know there's a 70 to 80 percent chance that that is going to be just dust. In that jar, maybe once in a while, there's going to be something good. And I think since that point to now, we've come so far.

3:06:24SpeakerThe cannabis is amazing now. But I think now where the biggest threat comes in is the growers aren't really thriving at this point. The cannabis has gotten so much better, but their life has not gotten better to get that cannabis to market. So I'm like, that's that's one of the reasons why we really love the collective. And it's one of the first things we always say when we're reaching out and working with another grower is like, OK, What can we bring to the table for them?

3:06:47SpeakerLike, is it like, hey, this is going to be released with us? It's just that that passion for like, I'm happy with the direction that the cannabis quality is going. And I think the biggest thing that stops us from that trajectory continuing is just having it be that it's not viable for growers. So we're being able to work together as a group to work with a group of growers.

3:07:10SpeakerI mean, it's not a save the industry thing immediately. But I think that has the ability to kind of really amplify from there. Like Dennis has said so many times, just different groups working together and kind of growing it from here and following a similar model.

3:07:23BubblemanAbsolutely. Yeah. Hey, Ryan. Welcome, Ryan.

3:07:32SpeakerHow are you guys doing? Hey, Ryan. Oh, it's Ryan.

3:07:36BubblemanDoing pretty darn good, you know, getting into the conversation here of craft cannabis and the Canadian market, also the US market, just sort of discussing. It seems like it's the same old kind of thing, you know, if you go in with the high integrity and you want to do things right, it's just so much more costly. You have like such a more sliver of a margin to do things proper and correct.

3:08:02BubblemanIs the more dangerous way, like it does involve more risk aversion than not. And so it's good that we do it. It's the passionate people who do it because no sane person would do it. Like if you were a CFO, you wouldn't be like, yeah, we should spend way more money to make way less money. Like, yes, let's do that. No CFO was saying that.

3:08:26SpeakerI had a meeting with these four Amigo shops the other day before Christmas, and it was interesting to me. There's nobody from the retail side that's going back up the chain, certainly as far as breeders and trying to help curate a better menu, right? Like you've got the LDBs, these distributor, provincial distributors that essentially sit in between the growers and the retailers. And they really are a pain in the ass for both the retailers and the growers because the growers can only sell so many SKUs to the LDB, right?

3:09:00SpeakerThe LDB doesn't want to take like 20 SKUs. If you got 20 great banger plants, the distributor really only wants to list like three or four, maybe, probably only two. Right. And so now we have this direct delivery thing that's been kind of implemented into the system that allows growers that are buying or that are growing unique things a way to bypass the distributor and get the product into the hand of the retailer.

3:09:29SpeakerSure, they still have to pay the distributor. Right. But they can actually get things that they want. And so these these group of guys here Are taking that to the next level and, you know, trying to go back to the growers and say, hey, can you provide us, you know, things that are different that we can offer them? Like they're trying to curate a series of products for the marketplace.

3:09:55SpeakerRight. Which is has been so far in legalization in Canada, completely unheard of. So I left this meeting with these guys the other day quite pumped up just because it's refreshing. It's like, it's like, okay, finally somebody gets it. And, you know, we're going to try to like be able to, to make an impact. And at least sure, it's only going to be 10 kilos at a time or whatever, but it's like, it's the foot in the door, right?

3:10:22SpeakerIs the important part is the foot in the door. And if we can like capitalize and actually, Get some really good quality products, then at least people have a place to get them, right? And I feel like that's going to be the start of like real cannabis awareness where people will actually be able to access the true, you know, beauty and chemical diversity that maybe the retailer or the distributors don't want to pick up.

3:10:54SpeakerRight. And in, in, in, in doing so, it also encourages growers to be able to do that, to, to grow that product because there's, there's an avenue for it. There's a guaranteed avenue for it with a group of, you know, starting with three shops, but hopefully it grows to more shops, um, of people that are willing to push it. Right. And willing to say, Hey, look, consumers, there's better things out there than just what's on the market.

3:11:21SpeakerSo, yeah, I'm stoked by watching what these guys are doing. It's pretty cool. I was stoked as us after we had that meeting with you, man. Yeah, I owe you an email, Sir Ryan. I am sorry. I'll get on it tomorrow. It's on my January to-do list. Yeah, January's been a slow start for me, too. I was over on the island actually doing selections on some equatorials and doing a bit of a consult over there, so...

3:11:47SpeakerYeah, it's got to find more places and more space to be able to grow these things and find these winner banger plants with the different flavor profiles and, you know, do my part to help curate that varied offering that we all want. I mean, we had it in spades before legalization, right? There was no shortage of flavors. So we just got to get back to that point and have a kind of a directed, concerted effort to do that.

3:12:16SpeakerWill we see any of that breeding project available via direct delivery? I hope so. It becomes a matter of economics for the growers. But, you know, knowing that there's going to be people willing to take some of it, then, yeah, I don't see why not.

3:12:34SpeakerYou know, I've been digging into the metrics with these guys as well. Their lot sizes are typically 60 to 70 kilos in a room. So we have to find a way to kind of allocate or plan those rooms and to make it make sense. But I think it's possible. I think it's possible. It's just, again, it's having it planned. So whether half the room is one of their production runs and, you know, you can stuff three or four cultivars in the other half, there's an economic...

3:13:05SpeakerYou know, there's these flat fixed costs with bringing any given SKU to market, right? You've got your testing and all your compliance costs. So it's like the batch size has to be of a certain size to make it worthwhile. But I think it's just balancing all the numbers and making sure that everybody's on the same page.

3:13:26BubblemanYou know, there's definitely a lot of things in place that work against you, like in a big way. There are.

3:13:33SpeakerAnd like you were saying, Marcus, with like, you know, some of these other product provinces, it's like it would be great to be able to expand what you guys are doing to a couple other provinces, which is difficult because, you know, you've got these big retail, these big retail chains that are owned by pubcos or, you know, big groups and they're all like they're not. They don't have the same philosophy that you guys do, but it would be amazing to be able to see other provinces kind of join forces in this project.

3:14:06SpeakerAnd that would help the growers with the economics of it, right? Because again, it's just these smaller batch sizes become difficult if there's no flow through. These businesses, as you guys do, businesses got to make money. So... But it's, you know, those are all challenges to be overcome. Just the fact that you guys are willing to take it on was for me very refreshing. I mean smart incremental approaches I think and as long as we're you know all parties are transparent and are able to work together and you know there's none of that I'm left holding the bag that's too big kind of scenario for you know retailers as far as case amounts and things like that I think it's absolutely doable and I've certainly noticed in the two years of us being open that customers are coming in looking for options asking for more You know, different terpenes, more functional strains, more, you know, better experiences.

3:15:02SpeakerSo people are looking for, for differences. And I think it's just a matter of not oversaturating the market and, and doing it right, which I think we can do it. I know we can. Absolutely. You're doing it. Are all your shops in this union in Vancouver? No, the Musketeers, which we've been calling ourselves, we're all in Vancouver. Well, except for the island, Gary's shop. But the overall collective is all BC.

3:15:31SpeakerOkay. It would be actually a good idea to potentially reach out to other provinces as well, because, yeah, that other question needs to be answered about the bulk of the biomass being produced and having a destination for it. You know, we are looking naturally at the export markets as the primary option, but other provinces as well make a lot of sense. So, but it's just the fact that we as retailers are thinking about that on behalf of the producer, on behalf of us as well.

3:16:03SpeakerI think that's kind of like the wish and hope that other retailers and other potential future collectives start to consider and think about. It's really just think about what your partners, you know, best interests are as well as your own. And then both of you guys can survive. Well, and that's kind of unheard of in this industry. Like, I've never heard Canadian retailers being concerned about export market, right?

3:16:33SpeakerBut it's like you said, it's like that's part of your philosophy is making this work for everybody. So you leverage your own connections to be able to say, hey, maybe if we can't sell that whole lot, that maybe we can help you find an avenue for it offshore. That's pretty awesome. Thank you for watching.

3:17:14SpeakerAbsolutely.

3:17:17BubblemanI just needed to get high. Cheers.

3:17:22SpeakerThat's what it was all about back in the day, right? I mean, when I first started smoking, for us, I remember we'd get joined and we'd roll up, we'd meet somewhere, we'd be like, We're not smoking yet. What are we doing? Are we going to the movie? Are we going to the park? Are we doing, are we going to the, what are we doing? Like what's the activity?

3:17:36SpeakerAnd then we'd all get hyped and, you know, roll it all up and then don't smoke it too early. You're going to wreck the high. And it was, it was this whole like experience and adventure. Right. And then you get a little bit older. And I mean, I've only, I'd say probably in the past, like 15 years, really started getting into more like terpenes and, you know, dialing it in a little bit more.

3:17:54SpeakerBut prior to that, I was just, I was just rolling up cannons and getting blasted, man.

3:17:59Etienne FontanYeah, getting high with your friends, the smoking circle, right? And passing it to the left and learning all the little rules and your own circle rules. Hey, you can't hit that three times, twice. You know how it goes, right?

3:18:14BubblemanYou had to teach your... Dude, those smoking circle rules go back a lot further than we can imagine. Because I'll tell you, while I was at the Maha Kumbh Mela with Pashupati, the sadhu from India... It was very much rules to get into this guy's little area. Obviously, taking your shoes off was a big one. Like, that was a super no-no. Also, touching your mouth to the cloth wrapped around the chillum was a huge no-no.

3:18:45BubblemanYou had to be able to make a little. And there was a soldier at one point in time who came in and first walked in with his shoes on, and that was a no-no. And brought his gun, which they made him lean up against a tree, which I thought was kind of fucking crazy. I was like, damn, what if that loaded gun just falls over? That guy holding it didn't look like the sharpest fucking tool in the shed.

3:19:08BubblemanAnyway, he got kicked out of our chillum circle. He got straight kicked out for taking the chillum and literally going like this. Putting the whole thing in his mouth with the thing. And the, the, the sadhu guy just lost his shit.

3:19:24SpeakerHe was just like, kicked him right out.

3:19:27BubblemanAnd I was like, I was sitting there on the banks of the Ganges in Haridwar with this whole scene going on around me. And I was like, whoa, like dude, I'm so high. And he's kicking out the army police guy while from smoking hash with us. And I'm just like,

3:19:48SpeakerThis is like a weird... You sure you want to do that?

3:19:50BubblemanWell, you're protected, but only for like a while. Like I'll tell you, we definitely got searched by the army later on that day by the soldiers in our hotel room. And it was frightening. Very frightening. Don't get caught in India. We'll see you next time.

3:20:28SpeakerRight, what they did to that guy? Holy shit, right.

3:20:31BubblemanWell, what his torturer did to him, right? All you have to do is meet one sociopathic torture guard and be like, all right. Well, it didn't end too well for him, right? No, he ended up with the thing in the back of his head that you hung the jackets on.

3:20:44SpeakerOh, my God.

3:20:45BubblemanThey thought it was a bomb. Remember, they all started laughing when they realized it was just hashish, and they were like, ah, ha, ha, we're going to torture this guy so badly, ah, ha, ha, ha. Holy shit, dude. Don't go to Turkey with the hashish either. Those motherfuckers are not hash friendly. Just too bad.

3:21:01Etienne FontanThey can stab you from the waist down legally. Fuck.

3:21:05SpeakerJesus Christ, dude. We've all been locked up abroad, so just leave your weed at home.

3:21:11BubblemanYeah, yeah, exactly. Don't don't travel with it. Don't take the chance. Hopefully one day we get into a world where we can we can travel with our cannabis from one country to another. That would be a pretty cool thing to be able to do.

3:21:24SpeakerYeah, I was I was watching that that movie that Martin Scorsese did on The Grateful Dead called Long Strange Trip. And I think it's in episode two where they're talking to Sam Cutler, who was the tour manager from 1970 to 74. After Altamont, he did the Rolling Stones in 69, but then was the tour manager for the dead. And he's like, yeah, he's driving around Brooklyn in his van, and he's being pulled over in the movie.

3:21:55SpeakerIt's really super interesting. But he's like, I don't drive with drugs anymore because everywhere I go, there's drugs. So yeah, I don't need to drive with him. Everywhere I go, there's drugs.

3:22:08BubblemanI believe everywhere he went, there was drugs. I'm not going to lie about that.

3:22:13SpeakerI had the fortune of meeting him before he passed. Very cool. Very, very cool. Very interesting guy. But that's a great... He and Courtney Tideye were very close. He and Sam. Yeah. Hey, Ryan. Happy New Year, buddy. How you doing? You too. Happy New Year, Mark. All right. Yeah, I was thinking about you. You saw I got my daughter a guitar for Christmas, and I think we're going to invest in a maize boogie, but we haven't figured it out.

3:22:43SpeakerBut I'll consult with you offline.

3:22:44Etienne FontanWhy'd you get her? Why'd you get her?

3:22:46SpeakerOh, we just got her a Gibson Les Paul copy. Just a Gibson Les Paul. For a starter guitar. I mean, it's pretty sweet when you look underneath the tree and there's a brand new electric guitar there and an amp. How cool is that? And a bag of mushrooms. No.

3:23:07Etienne FontanThat may have been in my stocking, actually. Get her some books or some tablature books and stuff like that.

3:23:15SpeakerYeah, well, she's already up. She plays piano already, so she already understands how to read. And so she's digging in online. And yeah, she's got the time. And she's with a group of friends where they want to try to put a band together. And she's like, yeah, I need to learn some stuff. So yeah, I'm psyched.

3:23:36Etienne FontanThere's a great one called the guitar grimoire. I have the bass grimoire one, which shows you all the scales. You can find it at most guitar or music places, but that gives you kind of everything to start. Ryan, what would you, the guitarist, I'm a bass player, so what would you recommend starting?

3:23:57SpeakerGood question. I find it's like one of those things, most of the ways that we learn to teach guitar is Pigeonholes people into like the wrong learning method.

3:24:10SpeakerHaving Mark just around I think was probably really helpful for her. It's hard to beat like, you know, having those one-on-one sessions. The challenge of that is it's like teenage kids don't necessarily want to like take advice from dad, you know? So here's the Mel Bay Encyclopedia of Guitar Chords. I highly recommend... Oh, there you go, Mel Bay. This soft-covered book, it probably cost about 30 bucks, but it's basically got everything.

3:24:41SpeakerI mean, you could imagine any different configuration or voicing and scales and all that kind of stuff, but ultimately, I think a lot of us end up learning how to play just by... Playing by ear, you know, right? I mean, that's just such a cool thing to learn when you get like that earworm that's stuck in your brain and then you just pick up the guitar and you play those three notes and you're like, oh yeah, that's what, you know?

3:25:09Etienne FontanYeah, but you've also seen that picture of David Gilmour and his son where his son's trying to do a chord and he's showing his son the chord and his son looks like so despondent.

3:25:19BubblemanHe's like, God damn it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a classic, actually. That's just funny. That's a parent thing, right? Like your dad is David Gilmour and you're annoyed by it. Yeah.

3:25:33SpeakerIt's such a wonderful thing to raise musical children because it puts music in your house at all times. You know, I'll just hear my daughter playing away. I love it. My son, when he's home, will be playing. And it's just a wonderful way to enrich your home life. You know, teach your kids music. And the musical mind develops... In a non-linear way that helps them solve other problems in life.

3:26:00SpeakerIt's just, it's, it's incredible just to watch kids who are proteges go from just, you know, being able to do plink, plink, plink to be able to do, you know, like what Billy Strings does. It's, it's totally amazing. Well, it becomes a lifetime habit, right? Like for me, guitar is relaxation. It's like the only time I can really tear my brain off is when I sit down and play.

3:26:21SpeakerSo, like, you know, even through university, I'd stop studying and, you know, take breaks and play guitar. And it's just, that's kind of become really what it's provided me for 35 years.

3:26:34Etienne FontanYeah, same for me. I've been playing for, you know, about 35 years too. And yeah, for me, bass playing and ukulele, I mean, I would not have been able to survive multiple of my cases of going against federal government by not having an outlet for my own frustration, which was music. I'm creative, I'm an artist, you know, but I really kind of gave up all my art and my expression came out through music.

3:26:59Etienne FontanSo, you know, to channel, I cannot... Agree enough with Ryan or Mark, you know, you can literally, you're in a bad mood or a sucky mood and you sit down with a guitar and you find that note on the, you know, and then you just start playing around on it. It's very liberating to the soul.

3:27:16SpeakerDo you have your ukulele with you out there on the island?

3:27:19Etienne FontanNo, no. I have friends who have so I can play them anytime and go into any store and have them. I used to travel with it. It's just it's just too cumbersome and stuff like that. But I mean, I have taken it to Europe when I went to the here's one. Right. I went to the the master class in Amsterdam and I brought my uke with me, ended up staying.

3:27:37Etienne FontanI went to the wrong hotel. The hotel was the same name on opposite sides of town. And I happened to stay at the one on the opposite side of town. And there was an actual jazz improvisation thing happening there. So I was sitting around and they saw me with the instrument and they called me up. Next thing I know, I'm jamming with all these different people from all around the world.

3:27:57Etienne FontanI don't speak any of their language, but the language is music. And we're all just jamming all in C and D and just having a blast for a solid hour until we all laugh and walk away. I mean, it's amazing what music can do for you. And I was there to get high, and none of them were there to get high. They were real musicians.

3:28:14BubblemanDid you ever do music on weed?

3:28:20Etienne FontanI have never not done music on weed.

3:28:23SpeakerYeah, that's the question is, have you ever done music not on weed?

3:28:27Etienne FontanThat's right, because my band practiced high so that when we played high, so that we were all ready. Yeah, you practice as you play.

3:28:35SpeakerIf you practice high, you better take the gig stoned.

3:28:38BubblemanYeah, but wasn't there a point where a little old lady was teaching you piano and you couldn't just get high? Like, you had to, like, be sober? Like, or did you start music late?

3:28:50Etienne FontanI was self-taught, so I never had really lessons. My brother and my father were both born blind, so they had perfect pitch, which used to bug the shit out of me. You know, you hear, ding, C sharp, like, fuck. You know, and they played piano very naturally in Oregon. So my aunt got an acoustic guitar, cheap, shitty Sears steel, you know, guitar that just rips your fingers off.

3:29:15Etienne FontanAnd so they gave it to my brother. My brother's blind, so he's got very sensitive fingers because he reads. And so he did not like the guitar. So I just started picking up that shitty, you know, acoustic and then listening to, you know, rock stations and then finding notes. Listening to Boston and all kinds of old songs, you know, old bands like that, which I cut my teeth on in the rural South, you know, and then just finding the notes and then you find chords.

3:29:38Etienne FontanAnd yeah, I don't know. What about you, Ryan?

3:29:42SpeakerLearning? I mean, I... Did you have lessons or did you learn yourself? Yeah, were you natural? Yeah, not in guitar. Well, a little bit in guitar, but it was like more of a private tutoring. And I was in high school at that point in time. I studied music when I was younger. Like I took piano lessons and then I played clarinet and then saxophone in band and you know junior high school and uh and then when I was in high school I picked up the guitar so I had you know I had a little bit of lessons from this one a local guitarist um But yeah, I love this.

3:30:18SpeakerI learned on the parking lot at the Grateful Dead shows in the late 70s. That's where I learned how to play guitar. And psychedelics and weed were in abundance. So I was in that environment. Oh my God, this is just rapture. And the music was what brought people together. And I still can't believe that in this day and age, we're still talking and listening about Grateful Dead because it's just, it was an incredible phenomena for...

3:30:46SpeakerSo many years, it was a huge lifestyle and a huge impact on me. But yeah, I did have a couple like rudimentary lessons from a guy with really long hair who started teaching me scales and chords. And I said, hey, man, I just want to play Stairway to Heaven. Can you just show me the chords of Stairway to Heaven so I can go to a guitar store and play it, right?

3:31:11SpeakerYeah, so he taught me three songs. He taught me Stairway to Heaven, and he taught me Neil Young's Heart of Gold and Down by the River by Neil Young. And so those were the only kind of lessons I really had. The guy was supposed to teach me all kinds of chords and scales, but I just ignored all that. I just wanted to play. Yeah, I mean, you asked how I would go about learning.

3:31:35SpeakerI think it's both. I think you have to learn... You have to have enjoyment. It's actually a challenging instrument to learn how to play, right? And so if you only go by rote and learning scales and chords, it can actually be quite boring. You have to learn, you have to do something that keeps you interested, right? So like learning songs and You know, learning to play by ear and maybe learning blues, that kind of stuff that you can just kind of jam out on.

3:32:01SpeakerI think it's definitely important to keeping you going, but you can't only do that because if you only learn that that way, you hit a certain point in time where you really kind of plateau. Right. And the only way to really, to get past that is to know all the scales and the inversions and your triads and, um, you know, the things that make the basis of the shapes on the neck.

3:32:24SpeakerSo that's why I would say like if you're for your daughter, like I would teach her the caged guitar system. I don't know if you know that Mark, but yeah, I do. I do. I'm familiar. Yeah. And then use those cage shapes as a way to learn the scales in any different position. Yeah, again, the cool thing is that she knows keyboards already, and I've already kind of sat down with her and expressed the kind of similarity between looking at the piano and looking at the fretboard.

3:32:52SpeakerBut the beautiful thing is that, you know, again, she's already got the double hand coordination of a keyboard player, right? And you need that for guitar. It's a completely different situation. But the other thing that I find really cool is that, you know, I mean, again, It's different today, Ryan, because now anybody with an acoustic guitar and an Instagram could be like a rock star, you know, a huge, tremendous thing.

3:33:22SpeakerLike it's no longer, oh, we got to get in a studio with a band and rehearse some material and put shit together. And you think about like the music that came out during our childhood, like in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s. I mean, we lived during this Golden Age.

3:33:43Speakerof music and art. I mean, if you think about it, we span a millennia here and where it is now with all the, I don't know, I mean, I'll watch the Grammy Awards, but I won't know any of the artists and I really, I can't relate to some of the produced shit that's happening today, but man, it's just so good to see acts like Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle and real musicians who are out there who are real, You know, that happened just for me.

3:34:21Etienne FontanI think so. What also brings up a discussion such as, you know, set and setting, right? Music in the dispensaries or, you know, because we always have music going on in the background, right? But you can't have like hardcore rap and, you know, all kinds of Fucked up nasty shit, you know, on your thing. So y'all have places. So how do you, what music do you use to set the mood in your scene?

3:34:44Etienne FontanYou know what I'm saying? Because, you know, definitely Mark's definitely into the dead and, you know, Marcus is into fish, you know, and things like that. Ryan and I are metalheads. We love it all. You know, we like the hard stuff. We like the heavy stuff, you know. So, you know, what do you do to set the mood in your smoke scenes as well as to make it more welcoming for your customers?

3:35:07SpeakerWe've got a Spotify playlist. The staff kind of generally run with that. I always seem to be stuck out on the floor when some gangster thug music's playing and Granny comes in to ask for some topicals.

3:35:18Etienne FontanAll right, you can feel either forehead starts to sweat, right?

3:35:21SpeakerShe stops, she kind of looks at the speaker, she looks back at me, just kind of like, yeah. When I'm on shift on Sunday mornings, I'll play a classical piano playlist that only I seem to like, except for certain customers will comment on it and say they like it, but staff all hate it. For us, it always depends on who it is too. Like I know if I'm their opening, I'm taking a full advantage of Spotify and just describing a mood.

3:35:47SpeakerI'm like rainy day, chill, old school, rock, dispensary playlist and Spotify will spit up like 20 different options. And I'm like, all right, I'm going with one of those. And then we have Dave who spent a lot of time down in Mexico is again, older white guy. And then he's got like the Thank you for watching.

3:36:25SpeakerTwo Life Coup in the background.

3:36:28BubblemanMusic is perfect for you. It's so specific and it's such a personal thing that it is hard. I've always found that like, like someone said in the chat, like, is there anyone who doesn't like reggae? It's like you put on reggae music, nice, low key reggae music. And you probably won't have too many people asking you to change the music. But that is a danger with music that you're always going to have someone, you know, just not, it's very specific, right?

3:36:58Etienne FontanIt's become a point of contention at times. That's why I'm curious how each one of you handled it. You'll have a random person in the shop turn on the music and then you have to have a talk with them, right? Because they meant well, but necessarily it comes off, right? Because you can't have, you know, over-sexualization and things like that. You know, you want to have a proper, respectful environment, right?

3:37:19Etienne FontanFor people to hear, right? You mentioned two live crew. That's a real thing, right? You know... Those songs were way too raw to be played. But, you know, after hours, I do have employees that would play that as they're counting and doing all that shit. But, you know, that's fine for that set and setting. But when it's customers involved, I think we all feel that responsibility, right?

3:37:40BubblemanYou mean to censor ATN?

3:37:42Etienne FontanNo, I'm just joking. Yeah, yeah, I mean, all right, to censor, you know, because, you know, we deal with everybody from the, you know, the 21 to 70 year old, right? So you're... I'm sure older. Right? They're completely random what people like and don't like. You'd be amazed at somebody who's the most hardcore rapper or, you know, or even metal person. You'd be surprised sometimes. So, I mean, I've, you know, I've tried to keep that neutrality and it's always been a challenge at times because, you know, people want to rebel through their music, right?

3:38:14SpeakerThank you. It's just like a bunch of interviews for a new store that we opened up in Burnaby here. And like, I'm not going to say which store all of these employees came from, but like there was like four or five that had applied from this one big kind of giant store. And every single one of them listed as one of the reasons for leaving is the music, because like they were only allowed to listen.

3:38:36SpeakerBut because they were only allowed to, they had no control over the music and the owners made them just listen to the same six or seven songs. Over and over. So it's like that long term, like they legitimately they're like, like people have changed it and gotten written up for it. Like we want no part of that. So when they came there, like, what's your guys policy?

3:38:55SpeakerI'm like, I don't just use common sense. Like, just don't go crazy. Otherwise, here's the tablet. Here's Spotify. Go nuts. Right. So common sense approach. Well, I mean, we've all been in stores where the music's horrible and you want to shop faster and leave.

3:39:08BubblemanYeah, but I think the key is for music is just turn it down. You know, whatever you're putting on, don't turn it. Nobody needs to hear your music super loud. Just turn that shit down. Have it as a background thing. So it's like, all right, it's not like the main focus when you walk in.

3:39:22SpeakerNightclub.

3:39:24BubblemanYeah, right? Boom, boom, boom, boom.

3:39:26SpeakerThe CIA do that for musical torture, right? They play the same songs over and over in your head.

3:39:32Etienne FontanI mean, when you go to Amsterdam, right? You go into some of these coffee shops and you've got the... And that's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, not my scene here, man. You know what I'm saying? Especially if you go into those smart shops back in the 90s. Oh, Jesus Christ, the pumping music was insane. It's psychedelic trance music.

3:39:53SpeakerYeah, the Euros and the Electronica is pretty funny. It's totally a different game.

3:39:58BubblemanI like how Etienne said, if you go into those psychedelic stores, like he wasn't going into every fucking one that he walked by.

3:40:07Etienne FontanOh, I shopped. I shopped at them all. You know, the smart stores. Absolutely.

3:40:11BubblemanDude, listen, I was blown away by them. I had never seen anything like them. So I also had to go in. Listen, I'll be honest. I still do. I still go into them when I go by them because I'm just like, what? Like what? Okay. Like, okay. I get that we can buy weed now, but like I went into Dana Larson's psychedelic shop on, I don't know, Broadway, just down the street from Tojo Sushi on Broadway.

3:40:34SpeakerHey, that's right. That's right across from my shop, Marcus.

3:40:37BubblemanThat is right across from your shop. Okay. I didn't really realize that because I was there really late at night. And so what street is that? That cross street? It's Broadway in Alberta. Okay, Alberta, that's right. So I'd never been to this shop and I didn't really realize where I was because I live in in Lions Bay, but my wife and I parked on Alberta and when we walked up, we saw Dana's shop and we went in there and it was just so crazy that you could buy like LSD and cactuses and mushrooms of all different varieties and like I was just...

3:41:08BubblemanHe has peyote too, right? He has everything.

3:41:11SpeakerAdam...

3:41:13BubblemanIt's unbelievable. How is that having that shop across the way? Is that like a mutual sharing of customers? Do you have people come over and go, holy shit, do you know they're selling LSD across the street?

3:41:23SpeakerYeah, it's awesome. It's great. We're the best corner to pick up your psychedelics and cannabis in Vancouver.

3:41:32BubblemanI love it that you're supportive of him, even though you're like, hey, I'm going this route over here with the licenses and the regulations and kind of following the rules. And Dana's just across the street like...

3:41:46SpeakerWhat a maniac. Well, and he provides education and access, right? Like, you know, like ATN talks about, like, you know, he provides a place that average Joe can go in and, and ask questions about using psychedelics. Like they sell this amazing chocolate bar. That's I think 300 milligrams per square.

3:42:05BubblemanI saw it.

3:42:06SpeakerYeah, yeah. And as a new user, and they come in all different strains, by the way, now, they're great. Shout out, Dana. And you just eat how many much you need. And it's great. And it's a great way for a new user to say like, okay, tonight, I'm going to try 300 milligrams and see how she goes. And then the next night, they can try 600. Or, you know, they can, they're in control of that.

3:42:28SpeakerWhereas, you know, if they're just eating mushrooms that are

3:42:31BubblemanIsn't it crazy that that can exist among like the regulated cannabis? You know, like what we're talking about is like, holy shit. Like for those that you don't realize, there are a lot of fucking rules to follow. And each one of them just like slices your margins. Like a Ginsu knife until the fucking margin is like, like as thin as the last peel on the onion, bro.

3:42:55BubblemanI think we should be able to pay for everything now.

3:43:00SpeakerI alluded to earlier that I got into this system for getting into trouble. And the thing that I got into trouble for was not destroying my smell jar weed in a timely fashion because I couldn't do it. It was wasting me.

3:43:12BubblemanI agree. How could you do that?

3:43:14SpeakerI didn't even care that it was three years old. I was like, oh, we could still make edibles out of it if somebody needed it. And no, no, I got written up for it. And I had to like video myself destroying it and stuff. And Well, you got caught up in an audit. Is that a provincial audit then? Yeah, so that's our body that comes in and makes sure that we're taking all the boxes.

3:43:35SpeakerAnd I got in trouble for some of my marketing, and then they came in. And once they come in, that's why you never want to be on the radar, because once they're in, they're in. And if there's anything else that you're not doing properly, well, they're going to find it. And it's the small things. It's not... You know, big stupid things. It's, it's like not destroying weed, you know, that, that, and then you're into the system and it's just, you know, they, they have to come back and yeah.

3:44:03BubblemanSo there's no sense to the fact that you can't a write that flower off and then take it and make edibles for yourself or your, or your crew.

3:44:13SpeakerHmm.

3:44:15BubblemanMakes no sense at all. So obviously lots of work to do. Do you guys, are there lobbying efforts that are in place? I guess there's a couple that I know of, but what are the substantial ones? What are the ones to support? And what are the ones that you guys as a collective would want to be a part of? The groups that are actively saying, hey, like, These things need to be changed.

3:44:35BubblemanLike, we're not trying to change at all, but there's some things that are really unreasonable. And we can show you clearly how any thinking person would see this as batshit crazy. What's the, what are those groups? Do they exist?

3:44:48SpeakerYeah, Bo and Abel. Yeah, he's certainly been helpful. And then there's, well, it was the old LRCC, right? And that sort of hasn't done very much for us in a bit of time.

3:45:02Etienne FontanThat's kind of my- What does the LRCC stand for? I'm just curious.

3:45:07SpeakerLicensed Retail Cannabis Council of British Columbia, or something like that. It's had its acronym changed so many times. But I used to be like have a role in it and I still actually technically do. And what it takes right now is just a little bit of time. And yeah, time is an expensive commodity in my life right now. So I unfortunately haven't been able to put my time behind it.

3:45:35SpeakerBut, you know, I'm really excited to see what Bo and Abel have been doing. And I'm excited for any retailer. Who has the time and they want to take on the ILRCCBC Challenge, they should contact that association and get involved because, you know, it could be a vehicle again. But right now, Bowen Able are doing a great job.

3:45:57BubblemanSomeone in the chat said, wait, they audit up in smoke. Meanwhile, his neighbor has a one-stop shop. Ha ha, lame. He's like, what the fuck? That is so insane. It doesn't even matter. Oh, don't accidentally fall on all the LSD across the street on your way out from my audit.

3:46:20SpeakerWell, the funny thing is, is the auditors wouldn't be caught dead in one of those shops because they couldn't be seen going into one. Right. So it's like they audit the compliant guys and everybody else just gets to run, run amok.

3:46:33BubblemanI'll proudly go into all those shops. Like, are you kidding me? I just thought it was great. I called Dana right after I hadn't talked to him in quite a while. I will be honest. I apologize, Dana, because he at once at one time he was a very good friend and we spoke quite often. And, uh, Yeah, we haven't spoken that much. But when I left his shop, I was like, dude, I just I actually took a picture.

3:46:53BubblemanI had the lady take a picture of me and my wife in the shop. And I sent it to him. I was like, dude, I just went to your shop. Like, holy fucking shit. Like, I guess I'm getting to the party late here. But I'm like, you know, Lions Bay is quiet. We don't have a city life or anything. So it's like the sun goes down. And it's like, all right, we're just like, we're gonna hang out here now.

3:47:11BubblemanThank you for watching.

3:47:32BubblemanI feel good about that. I'm honest. I honestly am. I feel good about that. The idea that they're not and they're just drinking and suppressing rage terrifies me. That's what I grew up with in Manitoba. I was basically all the police. I feel good for the police that they should have the option to be able to. In fact, it should almost be mandatory for police. To use cannabis in their off time.

3:47:54BubblemanIt's like, just have a little bit, you know, create a little empathy in your heart there and maybe feel something in a way that's a little different. I grew up around police myself. My mom worked for the police and my sister works for the police and her husband works for the police and their dog worked for the police and they all were police. So it was like, I was definitely kind of a bit of a black sheep in the sense of like, I'm kind of like, oh, what are you doing?

3:48:15BubblemanYour whole family's doing the police thing. What's your dad do? Oh, he's like the fire chief. Oh, okay. So what do you do? I'm like, I'm mostly like a weed guy. So a bit of a bit of a black sheep in that sense. But yeah, it all worked out.

3:48:28Etienne FontanWell, we're doing the same thing for veterans. We're working actually for the military. We're actually working and talking to so that they could actually, you know, these guys kill for a living. Sorry. That's the reality of being in the military. But that's your final reality. Right. So but they work nine to five, you know, Monday through Friday. And currently they can't use. Right. But they should be able to relax on the weekends and not have to worry about it.

3:48:51Etienne FontanSo. You know, we're working on that behind the scenes because, you know, first responders should also have access, you know, because we've actually welcomed first responders into our network because, you know, PTSD is not exclusive to war. Everybody has PTSD. What severities are... All different levels and I don't compare mine to yours and vice versa. However, you know, those first responders see a lot of shit every fucking day.

3:49:16Etienne FontanI mean, you know, I had a friend of mine who was one and he told me, you know, just picking up bodies off a train track. You know what I'm saying? It's ugly shit you have to deal with. And, you know, you're dealing with human trauma and tragedies all the time. And if anybody needs access to these, it's those first responders, you know, so they can cope with what?

3:49:35Etienne FontanBecause if not, they do what? Drink a lot of alcohol, didn't they, Marcus, right? A lot of alcohol to cope, right? Because that's how they're taught to do it. And that's how the military is. There's actually an officer's club and a non-officer's club. And there's always alcohol on base. And it's always tax-free. So, you know, that's the solution currently. We're working behind the scenes through that, you know, hopefully with some of these changes that are coming here in the United States, we will actually have access.

3:50:06Etienne FontanSo our even military personnel will be able to use on their off time. So that's something we're working toward because we're not satisfied with the status quo. And if you're not satisfied with the status quo, then get off your ass and do something about it.

3:50:21SpeakerAnd I don't, I don't, I don't know you very well. It's first time really meeting you and being on a podcast, but I've watched you many times on Hash Church and I just respect you because I hear you say that all the time to everybody, get off your ass and go and do something. And that's, I really appreciate that. That's, that's, that's solid.

3:50:38BubblemanYou know who doesn't appreciate that? People who are on their asses that don't want to get up off of them.

3:50:43SpeakerYeah.

3:50:45BubblemanThey are not stoked on ATN. They're like, fuck that ATN guy. Fucking get off my ass. Who the fuck is he? He's in fucking Maui.

3:50:52SpeakerExactly. Now the people have to hear from the, you know, the various authorities. They also don't like ATN because he gets it done. Right? Be it the UN or wherever. DEA, you guys have been fighting battles for a long time and winning. So we love ATN.

3:51:12BubblemanWell, that's what we got to do more of in Canada. Even though we got federal, it's like we still need, it sounds like we're missing an important body to drive the, the, Like lobbying is a black hole. It's just a fucking black hole that you can throw money into. You need these very specific surgical precision, you know, things that need to be lobbied for.

3:51:36SpeakerWell, and they get co-opted by the guys with money.

3:51:39Bubbleman100%.

3:51:40SpeakerRight? Like it's, they, it's, you know, they're beholden to the people that pay the salaries. So. Yeah. I think the biggest win recently, well, that I remember being celebrated was when they got all those drinks so you could buy 48 drinks in a transaction or something. I mean, that was a big deal. Not really.

3:52:02BubblemanThe idea of it was a big deal. The other idea of people getting like that much sugar at a time is like, holy shit. But it's good to not limit people. People that like beverages don't want to have to go buy like three or four every fucking day when they could buy like, you know, they do it with every other type of beverage. It should be allowed for cannabis.

3:52:23BubblemanSame, same thing with these boxes. Like, fuck, of course you should be allowed to buy 10 of them. Like, come on. That's it.

3:52:31SpeakerThat's the biggest new thing is the boxes, the 10 milligram gummies. Yeah. And the translucent packaging. So now we have windows and bags. Yes. Into the buds. That's, that's. My friend. This has got those windows in the bags. And just having the windows exposed to LED lights in the shop, all the weeds getting fried and turning brown. No way. Yes. So it's like what was sold is going to be like this big savior is actually a total pain in the ass.

3:53:01SpeakerIt ruins the week. We're like, yo, make sure these all face down. Let's put sticky notes over the window. I was thinking that you might want to do like a flap or something that you could like stick shut. People are doing the bottoms that are, you know, on the standup packages. Yeah. They're doing the bottoms. At the end of the day, it's just taking money out of the grower's pocket.

3:53:21SpeakerYeah, absolutely. And who's really looking at the package? I mean, on a real tale, I mean, do people do that? Do people look at the bud? They want to see it? Or have they gotten used to it being in a package? It's not an option at Up and Smoke so far that people have really exploited. There's only been like three products that we had that. So, you know, I don't think most farmers need novelty to sell their weed, right?

3:53:48SpeakerAnd to me, this window movement is a novelty thing. It's the only one package that I've seen. They showed the package that had the window and then the one without the one. That hadn't been exposed was like beautiful looking bud. The one that had been exposed to the LED lights was, I mean, it looked like multi-year old swag.

3:54:09BubblemanIt's kind of fucking lights they got going on over at that store.

3:54:13SpeakerIt's just the LEDs. It's just whatever's in the spectrum of these LED lights. It just bangs them off. Probably looks like the golden cobra. You remember that, Dennis? Yeah, that was terrible. The brownest weed I've seen since like New York way back in the day. It was terrible. It's fucking terrible. Yeah, I don't know if the windows, I agree with Matt, it's more of a novelty at this point, but a desperate grab at differentiation more than anything.

3:54:41SpeakerRight. I think it's good maybe for people that are still trying to establish their reputation. But like Matt said, when you have like the Magi's or the Island Genetics, it's like if they've had enough consistency with their products, people don't need to see them through a one-inch window to know that, hey, what's in this bag is probably good, right? There's more of that trust starting to develop this many years into the game now.

3:55:04SpeakerI think it's more the corporate brands just trying to show their customers that they're not putting shit in the bag.

3:55:09BubblemanI think had you guys been doing deli style all this time and people were able to see buds and stuff, then that window would be almost essential to have something like it if you had to change and go back in the other direction. But you started blind.

3:55:23Etienne FontanAnd you're an educated consumer base, too. And so your consumer base wants to see that. So I was really surprised. How many Canadians made me aware of how limited the view access to their cannabis was? Because I thought it was kind of like here in California where you can at least we can show you what the cannabis is. But no, when I went through there in Newfoundland and stuff like that, no, can't do any of that.

3:55:46Etienne FontanEverything's sealed and tight. So to hear that they're putting windows in is at least a good thing to me.

3:55:52SpeakerBecause that was the thing, right?

3:55:54Etienne FontanYou were getting bad weed or you wanted to see the weed that you're getting or at least how mature the quality or as well the brackets are, etc. All that matters.

3:56:03BubblemanApparently it looks like two-year-old brown weed with the new windows. So maybe they're going to have to do a window with the sticky clothes.

3:56:11SpeakerIt's not much of a win. Like if you consider all the problems that we have with the industry. I know my friends, they just met with the BC Cannabis Secretariat. And these, the secretariat had been dodging meetings. Like they set up like four or five meetings and they'd cancel them like last minute every time. And when they finally showed up, they wanted to tell the producer all the stuff that they'd been doing.

3:56:33SpeakerRight. And people don't realize it's like that dollar, that dollar per gram that is excise taxed, only 25 cents goes to the federal government. The other 75 cents goes to the, the province. Right. And so for example, Manitoba doesn't take the 75 cents. So if you're in Manitoba, there's only a 25% access tax for the tax stamps, which is, you know, that's like 75% savings and excise tax.

3:57:00SpeakerAnd so the BC Cannabis Secretariat came in and they were like, look at all the things we're doing for you, you know, and really it's a bunch of talk, right? They're not really doing anything. They're making all this money. The province is making all this money. And they want to make it seem like it's the federal government that's taken this big excise tax. And my friends called him out on it.

3:57:23SpeakerHe's like, you guys don't have to take that 75 cents. Manitoba doesn't do it, right? And the head of the secretariat was just like, it was like crickets, right? Like they didn't... They didn't know what to say. But, but, but Ryan, I'm sorry to interrupt, but they do, they actually do get the full hundred percent because they get that 15% markup that they charge all of the farmers.

3:57:45SpeakerSo, you know, like that's something that I've been thinking about this weekend actually is the fact that like, interesting that it's 15% because maybe that with the markup equals that loss 25 cents or 25% on the excise. Oh no. Yeah. The province has definitely taken their share. Right. But they don't have to because Manitoba doesn't take NDP. You know, NDP is the new Democratic Party. They're kind of like, you know, for the Americans watching, they're kind of like left of the Democrats, you could think.

3:58:13SpeakerAnd they're not really known for fiscal responsibility. They really want to take care of everybody in society, but like they tax the shit out of everybody. They're happy to give away taxpayer money. Right. And so because of that, they're very dependent on the tax money that comes in. Like there's no chance that they're going to ever give back any amount of money that these industries are putting forward because they're just they're so addicted to the money.

3:58:41SpeakerRight. These governments are so addicted to that money coming in because it's not a small amount.

3:58:45BubblemanNo. It becomes an enormous amount and it becomes beyond an addiction. It becomes a necessity. It creates an infrastructure that can't be kept in place without its existence.

3:58:58SpeakerOh, which is crazy because you don't put the responsibility for keeping a society running on one industry, right? And like alcohol is certainly not getting taxed that same way. Um, so yeah, we're the big, we're still the big, bad, big, bad industry. And they feel perfectly fine in kneecapping us to keep us in line. We need to legalize shrooms so that they have a new target and we can hide in the shadows again.

3:59:28SpeakerThat'd be great. Let's make Dana pay all the taxes. Hey, Dana!

3:59:32BubblemanOh my God. It is crazy. What a crazy world we live in that Dana's just... Got the all-in-one shop across from the shop getting audited because the guy who owns it is like, oh, I don't want to throw this weed away. This is a total waste. That's what he gets in trouble for. And he's a legal weed purchaser. And he bought that weed. It was his fucking weed.

3:59:56SpeakerA lot of fucking money.

4:00:00BubblemanOh, dude, I remember the fucking how many of those jars you have.

4:00:07Etienne FontanOh man, it's irony so thick we're all choking on rust dust. It's just that bad. Yeah. I mean, it's par for the course, right? It shows you the lack of disconnect, right? I mean, we find it humorous, but you didn't find it humorous when you're actually paying the fines and having to deal with that situation. It's all fun and games until you're actually paying it out, right?

4:00:31SpeakerThe only thing you can do is laugh because it's so absurd. Yeah, I did get away with no fine, just a nice pink warning ticket, but I had to go to their offices, which is on Burrard Street above one of those fancy car dealers. And yeah, yeah, I got the whole thing in the county. Yeah, yeah. Smellin' nice. Unbelievable.

4:00:53BubblemanWell, I want to thank you guys for coming in today and having the discussion with us and talking about the collective and telling us a little bit about your shops and what you guys are doing and where you're coming from. I'm a big supporter of it. I think it's great. I look forward to it expanding like Etienne suggested into other provinces and maybe having a... You know, at one point in time, a focal point on the importance of lounges and having some control over a lounge when you operate a store just seems like such an amazing, incredible, synergistic collision.

4:01:27BubblemanAnd it could probably be done in a very simplistic way beyond like lobbying for laws to be changed and all of that stuff, because it already exists in a sort of gray area. Anyway, I do want to thank Puffco and the Press Club, Bubble Bags and Grandmaster LEDs for sponsoring today's show. I want to thank everyone for watching. We had almost 300 people watching live for most of the day.

4:01:54BubblemanSo thank you guys for joining us. We have an amazing church next week. I'm hoping Mojave is going to be joining, possibly Rob Clark and Jimmy from the Original Breeders League and his 55,000 seed.

4:02:08BubblemanBreeding Project that they're doing right now and working on. So we're going to have them in to discuss and otherwise, yeah, you know, welcome to another amazing year, both in and out of cannabis. We're going to be here for 51 more episodes this year of 2026. May the full melt bless your bowl sooner than later, sooner, sooner than later. And we'll